The document discusses the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in customer communications, with a focus on its applications in contact centers, online customer support, and cost-effectiveness compared to human operators. While AI offers advantages such as efficiency and consistency, it also poses challenges due to its inability to fully understand human emotions and nuances in interactions. The future of AI in business is poised to revolutionize customer service, content creation, and brand compliance, although maintaining genuine customer relationships remains a concern.

1. Artificial Intelligence in
Communications

2. It wasn’t that long ago that people took it for grated
they would speak to another live person when they
called the customer service department or the main
phone number for a business. However, corporate
growth and the explosion of technology have pushed
many organizations towards using artificial
intelligence (AI) when communicating with customers
on the phone or online. Companies have now grown
beyond just using automated telephone prompts
with the ability to recognize voice.

3. The modern version of AI can now conduct live
chats, automatically send emails, route customer
phone calls, and much more. In fact, a recent
marketing industry research study indicates that
more than half of all contact centers in the United
States use some form of AI. In the future,
additional contact centers as well as various other
types of businesses will begin to incorporate AI.

4. A 2016 survey by Accenture Technology Vision
indicates that more than two-thirds of business
executives express interest is using AI. This is up
significantly just since 2014. It’s obvious to see
that the American workforce must embrace this
new era of AI technology to remain competitive.
AI is here to stay, and it will have a significant
impact on the way people in business
communicate in the future. Here’s how we think
that is going to happen.

5. AI and Online Customer Service
If you have visited any
website lately, it’s likely
that you noticed the
appearance of a chat bot.
It might seem as though a
real person made that
happen, but the reality is
that it’s more than likely a
conversation powered by
AI.

6. The company whose website you visited had a
programmer create automated responses based
on some of the most frequent questions that
customers ask. This is just one example of how
businesses use AI to provide online customer
support.

7. AI used in a customer support role online is
widely accepted by most people. It’s also much
more advanced than it was in the beginning. For
example, AI-powered chat boxes can answer
common and straightforward questions such as
the physical location of the business.

8. Facebook was one of the first online companies to
grow beyond using AI to answer basic questions
to employing approximately 11,000 chat bots in
their email app called Messenger. These AI-
powered chat bots allow users of Facebook to
perform a wide range of tasks such as finding a
movie that matches their interests to requesting
pizza delivery.

9. How AI Improves the Customer
Experience
Customer service departments that use AI can
expect to see many benefits. For starters, it’s far
cheaper to employ AI than a live operator. The
cost is 25 cents per call using AI versus up to $20
when a person answers the phone.

10. When AI handles calls with common inquiries, it
frees up the human staff to attend to other duties
and spend more time with people who need it.
Businesses can count on AI to handle many
common requests from customers. This leads to
less time on hold and live agents who answer calls
feeling more refreshed and ready to serve the
customer.

11. Possible Drawback with Incorporating
AI into Customer Service
Human interactions come
with a variety of subtleties
that AI cannot yet
interpret. Without the
human element present, it
can be challenging for
companies to create and
manage real customer
relationships. Ultimately,
this could affect loyalty to
the brand.

12. AI doesn’t presently know how to handle human
emotions as well as social norms, empathy, and
other types of human interactions. This can cause
big problems for a business, which Microsoft
learned the hard way in 2016.

13. That year, the company used AI to create a chat
bot that spoke like a typical 19-year-old American
woman. Microsoft targeted the bot to the 18 to
24-year-old demographic on several social media
sites. It wasn’t long before the bot began
repeating racists messages and political
statements that it picked up from the
conversation of America’s young adults.

14. Tech engineers quickly learned that it isn’t
necessary for bots to repeat all types of human
interactions and that they need to get better at
choosing only the good stuff.
Many industry analysts predict that it will be
difficult to distinguish a bot from a human in the
future. Until then, they work alongside each other
and try to provide the most useful information for
those they serve.

15. AI in Brand Compliance and
Communication
Developers of AI hope that it can prevent errors
made by real people. Mistakes happen because
human beings are alive as well as often
unpredictable and emotional. A person may grow
angry when dealing with a difficult customer
while an AI-powered bot can respond
appropriately without the risk of inserting angry
emotions.

16. It’s also possible that the live agent could have
things going on in his or her life that make it
difficult to deal with people in general. It wouldn’t
take much for a customer to push this person’s
buttons. Unfortunately, this can lead to disastrous
consequences and a tarnishing of the brand
image.

17. The benefit of AI is that it has no human emotions
or life stress that could interfere with providing
excellent customer service even under trying
circumstances. Programmers can ensure that it
properly reads and responds to certain scenarios,
phrases or keywords while remaining compliant
with established company guidelines. While it’s
possible that miscommunication may still take
place, using AI eliminates the possibility of an
emotional outburst.

18. Personalized Content and Automated
Content Creation
AI is extremely useful for creating both
personalized and automated content. One
example is the written article that is easy for
anyone to dissect mathematically. The Associated
Press currently uses AI to create reports for minor
league baseball teams as well as earning reports.

19. It also uses AI to produces approximately 3,500
earning reports every quarter along with more
than 10,000 recaps of minor league baseball
games.
The potential for AI goes beyond the Associated
Press to using it to produce marketing materials,
press releases, and other types of communication
for business. With AI automation, businesses can
quickly produce personalized content in
advertising, marketing, media, and more.

20. This is expected to have significant consequences
for the public relations industry since AI can find
detailed data that continually provides
personalized content to a specific audience.
The combination of big data and AI could create
new opportunities in customer service, public
relations, media, and marketing that seem
beyond the realm of possibility right now but will
be commonplace in the future.

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