[Sam Bednall, Telstra International] In today's hyperconnected era, commercial success is increasingly predicated upon providing exceptional end-user experiences to audiences, irrespective of whether those audiences are Business-to-Business, Business-to-Consumer, or Business-to-Employee. These experiences must be hyper-personalized, hyper-intuitive and typically omni-channel in nature.
While data and traditional AI technologies have been leveraged for digital experiences over the last few years, the rapidly evolving maturity of Generative AI has significantly disrupted businesses.
The ability to successfully deploy highly complex emergent AI technologies that deliver compelling experiences across the hyperconnected environment that companies now operate within will distinguish disruptors from the disrupted.
[Text on screen] Insights on Generative AI
Telstra, in partnership with MIT Technology Review Insights, commissioned a global report on Generative AI which garnered knowledgeable perspectives from enterprise business and IT leaders on macro industry trends, their AI adoption journey, areas of focus in 2024 and corresponding challenges.
It ascertains that the majority of surveyed firms have already embarked upon Generative AI adoption and have ambitious plans for further and increased adoption in 2024. While respondents were not specifically asked about their deployments in relation to servicing digital experiences use cases, I think it’s fair to assume that the majority of the investment have had, and will have, an impact on enhancing digital experiences in some form or another.
The enhanced user experience may stem from deployment of conversational chatbots for internal or external use, leveraging Generative AI to identify anomalies in software code, or provide data-driven recommendations across business functions.
Plans for using Generative AI may founder on a host of challenges that many organisations appear to underestimate. This perspective is likely prevalent across many companies. Acknowledging and addressing this imperative must be top of mind for corporate leaders.
[Text on screen] Leveraging Generative AI
The holistic integration of AI into the everyday operational and cultural facets of a business, is referred to as AI-Integrated Business Dynamics. It underscores the importance of aligning AI technologies with business processes to optimize performance and efficiency, while also emphasising the need to embed AI within the organisational culture. This led to fostering innovation, adaptability, and a forward-thinking mind-set among employees at all levels.
Put simply, smart and strategic investments in AI-enabled machine-to-machine and human-to-machine capabilities aimed to deliver compelling digital experiences is now central to competitive advantage.
Telstra is supporting organisations with elevating their digital experience capabilities via numerous product and service offerings. One example is our AI and Data envisioning workshop, whereby we facilitate the exploration of existing business processes, to identify gaps, and determine requirements to develop co-created solutions.
Another example of the applicability of Generative AI to improve customer experience is from my own company - Telstra. One Sentence Summary was an internal customer service pilot launched in 2023. Leveraging Generative AI, a frontline worker was presented with a crisp one-sentence summarization of all recent customer interactions, whether the interactions stemmed from a combination of sales requests, support tickets, billing inquiries, and so forth.
Our 2023 trials showed 90 per cent of employees using the tool saved time and increased effectiveness, resulting in 20 per cent less follow-up contact. Team members also noted the tool enabled them to quickly understand challenging or sensitive circumstances, such as those in need of priority or financial assistance. Telstra will roll out One Sentence Summary to all its contact centre and store teams across Australia throughout 2024.
Within the Hyperconnected AI Era, customers now demand hyper-pervasive and hyper-intuitive interactions across all human-to-human and machine-to-human engagements. Equally, it is critical to empower internal users to deliver increasing business value within today’s always-on and work-from-anywhere environments.
So, where are you on your journey of AI-enabled Hyperconnected Digital Experiences? Do you aspire to be a Disruptor, or risk being the Disrupted?
[Text on screen] www.telstrainternational.com/GenAI
