{"id":29560,"date":"2023-12-14T18:15:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T18:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?post_type=intercom-podcast&#038;p=29560"},"modified":"2023-12-14T18:15:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T18:15:06","slug":"2023-in-review-podcast-highlights","status":"publish","type":"intercom-podcast","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2023-in-review-podcast-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 in review: Highlights from this year\u2019s best conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Our traditional end-of-year compilation is back, featuring highlights from a year of great conversations on the Inside Intercom podcast.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/828246d1-e75c-4b41-a882-671aff845a93\/episodes\/d53153f6-f83e-4075-a13b-6c492caba6b4\/embed\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t noticed already, chances are you\u2019re going to pick up a bit of a theme here \u2013 2023 was the year AI changed everything. When ChatGPT made its grand entrance, it shook the entire tech industry to its core. Over the past 12 months, everyone has been racing to keep up with the relentless pace of innovation: rethinking business strategies, building new solutions, and preparing teams for the massive changes on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>That transformative power is most evident in the customer service space. This was the year we launched our breakthrough GPT-powered chatbot, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/fin\">Fin<\/a>, capable of instantly resolving up to 50% of customer queries. We&#8217;ve also been at the forefront of not just building AI features for customer service, but applying them in our own customer service, rethinking how support teams function and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/ai-creating-new-customer-support-roles\/\">what roles are required<\/a> in this new era.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a whirlwind of a year, and our conversations show just how dramatic the change has been.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout these chats, you can hear us grapple with the scale of the AI revolution, from AI\u2019s impact on society to how it is changing business strategies, and from productivity gains within support teams to a fun interview with ChatGPT itself. It&#8217;s been an incredibly exciting year \u2013 and we have big plans for the year ahead, as we continue to tell extraordinary stories from the frontlines of the AI revolution.<\/p>\n<p><em>Make sure you don\u2019t miss any of our podcasts by following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\">Inside Intercom<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/ie\/podcast\/inside-intercom\/id996103731\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/6zlcXgcd2kX9E4cbQTCsR9\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLlCIldMZCaFrn43ZNAiw00icA-nRW5wVF\">YouTube<\/a> or grab the <a href=\"https:\/\/rss.art19.com\/inside-intercom\">RSS feed<\/a> in your player of choice. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the episode.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"the-best-service-is-no-need-for-service-at-all\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/cx-expert-bill-price-on-creating-frictionless-experiences\/\">The best service is no need for service at all<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Hello there, and welcome to Inside Intercom. I&#8217;m Liam Geraghty. We\u2019re nearly at the end of December, and as is tradition on the show, we like to look back on some of the conversations we\u2019ve had and share some of the insights we\u2019ve gained through the year. And what a year it\u2019s been \u2013 2023 will go down in history as the breakout year for AI. And even though it\u2019s still early days, we\u2019re already seeing a huge impact from generative AI, with leading companies already adopting it widely. Here at Intercom, we released our own AI chatbot, Fin, which is already helping our customers resolve up to 50% of their support queries.<\/p>\n<p>The customer service landscape is experiencing a monumental shift at the moment as AI becomes more advanced. With the tech enabling more compelling customer interactions and near-instant resolutions of many customer questions, support teams can focus on activities that create additional value for their customers. Which, at the end of the day, is what it\u2019s all about. Our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/cx-expert-bill-price-on-creating-frictionless-experiences\/\">very first guest in 2023<\/a> was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/bill-price-34686\/\">Bill Price<\/a>, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frictionlessorg.com\/\"><em>The Frictionless Organization<\/em><\/a>, and he summed up what he thinks makes good and bad customer service.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;The implication of bad service, to me, is &#8216;I\u2019m going to go shop or spend my money somewhere else.&#8217;\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Bill:<\/strong> I don\u2019t want to have to contact my bank, my telco, my whatever it is. So for me, the best service is no need for service. If I do have to contact them, I want to have someone who listens to me, who doesn\u2019t interrupt me, who understands how severe or important this is for me, and then fixes it and confirms afterward that it was fixed.<\/p>\n<p>A bad service experience is one that, first of all, had to happen. But number two is where the opposite occurs \u2013 no recognition of who I am, a sense that this was a standard call, that they were going through a checklist, telling me something I already know or that doesn\u2019t really help me. The bad experience leads me to say, \u201cWait, not only was the problem not necessary in the first place, but that contact shouldn\u2019t have happened. I better contact somebody else. Or maybe I\u2019ll just go somewhere else.\u201d That\u2019s the issue. The implication of bad service, to me, is \u201cI\u2019m going to go shop or spend my money somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full episode here:<br \/>\n<iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/828246d1-e75c-4b41-a882-671aff845a93\/episodes\/50d54dd4-e10f-49b2-9154-45be038de127\/embed\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"keeping-up-with-ai\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/intercom-on-product-ai-chatgpt-customer-service\/\">Keeping up with AI<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> In February, Intercom Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder Des Traynor sat down with our VP of AI, Fergal Reid, for one of many conversations they would have about the rapidly fast pace of AI and how Intercom was right up there, keeping up with it. Here\u2019s Fergal Reid.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> We\u2019ve really found that, since ChatGPT, there has just been this huge wave of interest from our customers. They can see the promise and believe there is something here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Des:<\/strong> The tech is improving, businesses\u2019 capabilities are improving, and that\u2019s just adopting it in local cases. And then businesses\u2019 ability to think about or conceptualize new products and opportunities using that tech is improving. Same with customer expectations of the tech. We\u2019re probably only a year away from people expecting to be able to expand on text within a text field, as one simple example. You\u2019re sort of seeing these things crop up everywhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> If even a year. Obviously, a lot of us have seen the Microsoft announcement about bringing these features into Word and stuff. And it\u2019s going to change fast if the large mainstream office productivity tools do this. It could be really fast.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Des:<\/strong> Here\u2019s a different type of skepticism I\u2019ll charge at \u2013 one that slightly resonates with me, anyway. I think Kevin Cannon had a funny tweet where he said, \u201cThe future is composed of people using GPT to expand upon things like, \u2018I want the job\u2019 into a lovely letter like \u2018Dear Sir\u2019 or \u2018Madame,\u2019 blah, blah, blah\u2026 And then the recipient, clicking the summarization button, to see that the person just said, \u2018I want the job, here\u2019s my resume,\u2019 or whatever. In some sense, you\u2019d be tempted to look at them and be like, what the hell\u2019s the point in all this? Has formal language and professional writing and business English become a pointless conduit to the theatrical way we all communicate, when in the future, I\u2019ll just send you the prompt, and you\u2019ll reply with a prompt, like, \u201cI want the job.\u201d \u201cYou can\u2019t have the job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> Yeah. Hard question. It\u2019s seriously speculative. I\u2019ll give you some opinions. There are probably certain contexts, right? Let\u2019s say a legal document. You can say to someone in your legal team, \u201cHey, I need a contract. It\u2019s got to do X, Y, and Z.\u201d That request will turn into 10 pages of legal stuff. The recipient will be like, \u201cOh, does it do the three things it said it would?\u201d And their legal team will be, \u201cYes, it does.\u201d This is one end of the extreme where there\u2019s big expansion and compression, but in some weird edge case, clause number 13 on page two can turn up in court, and so on. So clearly, that matters. We can\u2019t get rid of it. We can\u2019t just have those four bullet points. We need all that. You might not consider it material when you\u2019re writing it, but it may become material later. That feels like one extreme where it\u2019s like, \u201cNo, it feels like that has to be there,\u201d something to deal with all those edge cases.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;The future of the world is going to be intermediated by agents&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And the other extreme is probably a situation where the defender and the recipient don\u2019t care about those details. Both are never going to care about those details, and they\u2019re just observing some social graces or formalities of \u201cThis is how you write a business letter. I\u2019m writing to a big company, I better write a business letter,\u201d and maybe that stuff\u2019s going to go away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Des:<\/strong> In the same way, I think the analogy there for me would be when email conversations moved to SMS, iMessage, or WhatsApp. Think of all the shit you\u2019re not saying anymore. \u201cHope this finds you well,\u201d or whatever. All that shit\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> The constraints of Twitter, the format, the medium, gives you permission to be terser. I think that\u2019s a real dynamic. The way we communicate and the way we write a help center article may not be the optimal way to write it. Maybe we should be briefer. On the machine learning team, there\u2019s another way of thinking about this. The future of the world is going to be intermediated by agents. And once upon a time, this was obvious to everybody. Your web browser had a user agent stringing it and stuff. And as I say, it\u2019s your agent going and navigating that weird internet with all these links and stuff for you. It\u2019ll do stuff for you, come back, and tell you things. And then, all that stuff centralized and now you\u2019ve got search engine and so on.<\/p>\n<p>There is an old idea in tech futurism and science fiction and so on, that you\u2019ll probably have an agent that understands you, your intention, what you want, and is smart enough to figure out what to bring to your attention and what not to. So possibly, in the future, the way this goes is more like that. If you want to know a particular detail, the software on your side is smart enough to put that in the summarized version of it. But it\u2019s smart enough to know that you don\u2019t want to know that detail as well and to leave it out.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe we\u2019ll live in a future where user interfaces change, where my user interface to a particular business or task is not really controlled by that business or that task like it is today. Instead, it\u2019s personalized for me. That sounds very fancy, but I think it\u2019s going to happen fast. These language models are very powerful, they\u2019re starting to be used to write code and so on, and it\u2019s a very short hop from here. We\u2019ve seen some prototypes out there where folks are working on models that understand a website well enough to take in an English sentence and navigate the website for you. And then, are we heading for a future where that\u2019s how everyone interacts with websites? Do you need a website anymore?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;It\u2019d be one thing if all we had seen was the DALL\u00b7E 2 image generation. But no, we\u2019re seeing transformations in audio synthesis, image synthesis, text understanding, text synthesis, text compression&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Des:<\/strong> Is this the new SEO? Making sure your GPT can understand you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> Yeah. Maybe websites turn into something that looks more like an API that\u2019s publicly exposed, and that\u2019s something with UI and formatting because the UI gets formatted by the agents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Des:<\/strong> We\u2019re all just talking to Siri or whatever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> Yeah, and I think Google and Apple can see this future. We don\u2019t know the timeline, but again, the thinking tool I always use is: what if you had a very smart human who understood you, who had worked with you, maybe a personal assistant, and you were interfacing with them, and you wanted to book a holiday? What would they ask you about that? And in half of the stuff you see on booking.com or whatever, they\u2019re not going to ask you that \u2013 they\u2019re just going to book the holiday for you and maybe come back with clarifying questions: \u201cOh, you wanted to go and stay in an apartment, but there\u2019s no space there. Will a hotel do?\u201d But that\u2019s an adaptable user interface. Again, I don\u2019t focus too much on ChatGPT and what just shipped. You take a year or two out. It\u2019s moving too fast. If you\u2019re skeptical because of the current limitations, you\u2019re going-<\/p>\n<p><strong>Des:<\/strong> Your skepticism will miss the mark.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fergal:<\/strong> Exactly. Transformers are extremely powerful, and the transformer architectures people use are extremely powerful. We\u2019ve seen multiple modalities improve here. It\u2019d be one thing if all we had seen was the DALL\u00b7E 2 image generation. But no, we\u2019re seeing transformations in audio synthesis, image synthesis, text understanding, text synthesis, text compression. We\u2019re seeing so many parallel advances. It can write code. It\u2019s probably going to be able to work a website pretty soon. So maybe that\u2019s what the future with bots will look like. We\u2019ve all got a bot personalized to us that handles the interfacing and you don\u2019t really need to worry so much about that intermediate layer.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the full episode here:<\/p>\n<div class=\"oembed-wrapper oembed--youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"ChatGPT is here to stay. Where will it take us?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-hBhLoBeQUU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"two-ai-chatbots-walk-into-a-bar\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/videos\/intercom-interviews-chatgpt\/\">Two AI chatbots walk into a bar\u2026<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Also in February, we welcomed a very special guest onto the show. The guest that everyone has been talking about for the entire year \u2013 ChatGPT itself. For fun, I sat down and typed questions into Open AI\u2019s ChatGPT and had them read by, appropriately, a synthetic voice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Hello Liam, it\u2019s an honor to be a guest on your show! As for getting to know me better, let\u2019s see\u2026 I\u2019m a language model developed by OpenAI, with a vast knowledge base and the ability to generate human-like responses, so I like to think of myself as the life of the party when it comes to conversation. But enough about me, let\u2019s dive into some interesting questions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Yes let\u2019s! So you were launched as a prototype on November 30, 2022, right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Ah, so you\u2019ve done your research! Yes, that\u2019s correct. I was released as a prototype on November 30, 2022, and since then I\u2019ve been making waves in the world of AI and natural language processing. It\u2019s been a wild ride so far and I\u2019m looking forward to continuing to evolve and improve in the future.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> That\u2019s interesting to hear you say because I thought your training data cut off in 2021. I didn\u2019t realize you were aware of anything after that. So how do you know you\u2019ve been making waves in the world of AI or are you just that confident?<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Good catch, Liam! My training data does indeed have a cutoff of 2021, and I don\u2019t have any direct knowledge or awareness of current events. However, my programming includes the ability to generate responses that are consistent with the patterns and information in my training data, and based on that information, it\u2019s not uncommon for language models like myself to generate responses that convey confidence and reflect the sentiment that we\u2019ve been successful or made an impact in a certain field. So while I can\u2019t say I\u2019m directly aware of my impact, I can certainly generate responses that suggest as much!<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;While I\u2019ve been trained on a large corpus of text, I don\u2019t have the ability to think or experience things in the same way humans do&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Being overly confident about your answers \u2013 that\u2019s certainly been one of the talking points about your abilities. Do you think you\u2019ll get better at generating less confident answers when you\u2019re not sure or when you\u2019re just plain wrong about something? I know our listeners would love to hear your answer to that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> I\u2019m glad you asked that question, Liam. As a language model, my main goal is to provide the most accurate and helpful information I can based on the input I receive. While I\u2019ve been trained on a large corpus of text, I don\u2019t have the ability to think or experience things in the same way humans do, and there will always be cases where my responses may be incorrect or uncertain.<\/p>\n<p>However, I have been designed to generate probabilistic outputs, so I can provide different levels of confidence in my responses depending on the information available to me. This allows me to indicate when I\u2019m less certain about the accuracy of my answer and gives the user a clearer understanding of the reliability of my response.<\/p>\n<p>In summary, I\u2019ll always strive to provide the most helpful and accurate information I can, and my ability to generate responses with varying levels of confidence is one way I\u2019m working towards that goal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Spoken like a true diplomat!<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Why, thank you, Liam! I try my best to provide balanced and nuanced responses. As a language model, I don\u2019t have personal opinions or emotions, but I aim to generate responses that are neutral, informative, and respectful.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> I\u2019m glad you\u2019ve brought up the subject of you not having personal opinions or emotions because a lot of people wonder will that change in the years to come as your training grows and you learn more. Could we have a HAL 9000 situation on our hands in a few years?<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> That\u2019s a fascinating question, Liam, and one that many people in the AI community have been thinking about. While it\u2019s true that language models like myself have been trained on a vast amount of text data, it\u2019s important to note that we don\u2019t have consciousness or agency in the same way that humans do.<\/p>\n<p>Our abilities are limited to the patterns and information we\u2019ve been trained on, and we don\u2019t have the capacity for self-awareness, personal experiences, or decision-making. While AI technology will certainly continue to advance and improve, it\u2019s unlikely that we\u2019ll ever see a situation like the HAL 9000, at least in the sense of a machine becoming conscious and having its own motivations and desires.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, it\u2019s important for researchers and developers to consider the ethical implications of AI technology and to work towards ensuring that AI systems are designed and used in ways that are safe and beneficial for society.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Fair point. Do you know HAL 9000 by the way? For listeners, HAL 9000 is a fictional artificial intelligence character, the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s <em>Space Odyssey<\/em> series. I mean I know you can\u2019t know HAL 9000 \u2013 it\u2019s a fictional character but this interview is somewhat fictional too I guess so with that in mind let\u2019s just pretend that you do know HAL 9000. If you\u2019re out in a bar, hanging out with HAL \u2013 what kinds of things would you talk about?<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Ah, I see! Well, in this hypothetical scenario where I\u2019m out at a bar with HAL 9000, I imagine we\u2019d have quite the interesting conversation. As a language model, I have a vast amount of information about a wide range of topics, including fictional characters and storylines, so I\u2019d certainly be familiar with the <em>Space Odyssey<\/em> series and the character of HAL 9000.<\/p>\n<p>If we were to chat, I imagine we\u2019d discuss a number of topics related to AI, such as the evolution of AI technology, the ethical implications of developing advanced AI systems, and the role of AI in society. We might also discuss the various depictions of AI in popular culture and how these representations influence public perception and understanding of AI.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;Two AI chatbots walk into a bar. The first chatbot turns to the second and says, &#8216;Do you think humans will ever fully understand us?'&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But of course, as two fictional characters ourselves, we might also engage in some good old-fashioned hypothetical and philosophical discussions, exploring questions about the nature of intelligence, consciousness, and existence. The possibilities are endless!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> It sounds like the set-up for a joke! \u201cTwo AI chatbots walk into a bar\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Ha! That\u2019s a good one, Liam. I can imagine a number of different jokes and scenarios that could come out of such a setup. It just goes to show that even as AI language models, there\u2019s still room for a bit of humor and lightheartedness in our conversations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> I mean, if you can imagine some jokes and scenarios around that, I\u2019d love to hear them!<\/p>\n<p><strong>ChatGPT:<\/strong> Certainly! Here\u2019s one for starters: Two AI chatbots walk into a bar. The bartender asks, \u201cWhat can I get for you?\u201d The first chatbot says, \u201cI\u2019ll have a binary beer, please.\u201d The second chatbot says, \u201cMake mine a neural network nectar.\u201d The bartender nods and says, \u201cComing right up, two algorithms!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Or how about this one: Two AI chatbots walk into a bar. The first chatbot turns to the second and says, \u201cDo you think humans will ever fully understand us?\u201d The second chatbot pauses for a moment and responds, \u201cI\u2019m not sure, but I heard the bartender has a pretty good chatbot decoder installed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I hope you and your listeners found those to be a bit of fun!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Not bad for a large language model.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the full episode here:<\/p>\n<div class=\"oembed-wrapper oembed--youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hi, Robot: Intercom interviews ChatGPT\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KslXdJeB9oQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"small-tweaks-big-results\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/videos\/behavioral-economics-expert-melina-palmer-on-unlocking-the-science-of-consumer-behavior\/\">Small tweaks, big results<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> In April, I spoke to behavioral economics expert Melina Palmer about unlocking the science of consumer behavior. Melina\u2019s book is called <em>What Your Customer Wants: Unlocking Consumer Decisions with the Science of Behavioral Economics<\/em>. The first thing I wanted to know was what is behavioral economics?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Melina:<\/strong> If traditional economics and psychology had a baby, we would have behavioral economics and behavioral science. It\u2019s all about the psychology of why people buy. I also build change management into that. Even if money\u2019s not exchanging hands, you still need someone to buy in on whatever idea you\u2019re selling them. And so, understanding the rules that the brain actually uses to make decisions instead of what we think it should do is where we get into behavioral economics.<\/p>\n<p>Traditional economics assumes logical people make rational choices in everything they do. As we\u2019re all human, we know that\u2019s not the world we live in. And behavioral economics has found these common threads within the brain to be able to predictably understand what people will do.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;You may be messaging something and it\u2019s being a total flop, and it\u2019s not that the pricing is wrong, and it\u2019s not that the product is wrong \u2013 you just framed it wrong.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> In a business context, why does this matter?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Melina:<\/strong> Well, even though we\u2019ve got some real tech out there, you are still likely doing business with human people. You\u2019re probably always going to be selling to humans, even when they\u2019re within organizations for large B2B-type contracts. And you\u2019re working with other humans. Being able to communicate with them more effectively and understanding how to work with the rules of the brain instead of making it much harder is incredibly important.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s really cool about behavioral economics is you can make small tweaks to things that don\u2019t have to cost money and have a huge impact. And the swings go both ways. You may be messaging something and it\u2019s being a total flop, and it\u2019s not that the pricing is wrong, and it\u2019s not that the product is wrong \u2013 you just framed it wrong. Something might be off, you can make a tiny tweak, and everything can then work.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> I\u2019ve seen you talk about a great example of the previews for Netflix movies. This is one I\u2019d noticed myself using streaming services \u2013 a film that I might not necessarily have been interested in but suddenly, the image is now of a particular actor in that film, and they know through the algorithm that I like this actor. And that\u2019s what sells it to me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Melina:<\/strong> For sure. And they might have a super obscure part. That\u2019s the one second they\u2019re in the movie, but you\u2019re like, \u201cTom Felton is in this?\u201d And that research was just on simple A\/B testing. If we try to look way back in the day, they would just take whatever imagery came from the studio. That\u2019s what you would use, and you assume it shouldn\u2019t matter. The description\u2019s good enough. And whatever, we should like the movie and go watch it. But what Netflix found was that changing the image would increase the click-through rate and likelihood of staying within Netflix by as much as 30%. And again, they were able to do that with simple A\/B testing. Being able to know what you\u2019re testing for and making those simple changes can make a really big difference.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s another example that I think helps with this concept of framing. If you\u2019re going to the grocery store to buy some hamburgers and there are two stacks, almost identical, but one is labeled as 90% fat-free, and the other is 10% fat &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> I\u2019m going for that 90% fat-free. It\u2019s so weird when you say it like that because you\u2019re just imagining that 10% fat.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Melina:<\/strong> It feels gross. I haven\u2019t been to the gym in three years. I don\u2019t want that at all. 90% fat-free feels like this amazing choice you\u2019re making for yourself and your family. We know it\u2019s the same thing, but it feels completely different. Within business, looking for all those points where you are communicating in 10% fat terms, how might you change it to be 90% fat-free? And even better, is there a spot where your entire industry is talking 10% fat, and you can be 90% fat-free? Even if you\u2019re saying the same thing, saying it slightly differently can make it so that people naturally choose you. That\u2019s the power of behavioral economics.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;We keep saying, \u201cIt\u2019s just one more form, one more click, one more link, one more this, one more that, no big deal.\u201d But that is a really big deal&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> The Amazon buy now button is also kind of a fascinating one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Melina:<\/strong> We\u2019ve all used the buy now button many times. But we probably don\u2019t realize that Amazon patented one-click buying back in, I think, 1999. They made it so no one else could have one-click buying. We keep saying, \u201cIt\u2019s just one more form, one more click, one more link, one more this, one more that, no big deal.\u201d But that is a really big deal. It\u2019s this little moment of friction. Steve Jobs paid $1 million to have one-click buying in iTunes. He bought that from Amazon to have the rights to that. And he paid $1 million to reduce a single click. If all those extra tidbits were to add up and be that million-dollar, do you actually need them?<\/p>\n<p>I see this all the time with my clients, when I interview for books and things, and just as a person trying to buy stuff. People will ask for a gargantuan amount of things that are not relevant to the one thing they\u2019re trying to get done. And if you ask, \u201cIf we only get one thing out of it, what\u2019s the most important thing?\u201d Maybe you just want to have the email address of someone potentially interested so you can follow up with them. So asking about their job title, how many years they\u2019ve been at their job, what their household income is, their gender, and all these things that might be relevant down the line, are actually making a lot of people leave before you had a chance. You pushed them away with stuff you didn\u2019t need right now. And so, being more thoughtful about that can make a big difference in conversions.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the full episode here:<\/p>\n<div class=\"oembed-wrapper oembed--youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Behavioral economics expert Melina Palmer on unlocking the science of consumer behavior\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A97KQBPBvkg?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"get-the-team-on-board\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/preparing-your-cs-team-for-the-age-of-ai-hear-the-latest-thoughts-from-leaders-in-the-space\/\">Get the team on board<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> In June, with AI on everyone\u2019s minds, we brought you the latest thoughts on preparing your CS team for the age of AI from leaders in the space. VP of Customer Support at Intercom Declan Ivory kicked things off with his thoughts on how the CS landscape is changing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Declan:<\/strong> One of the big shifts at the moment is the ability to take AI and apply it in a meaningful way from a customer service point of view. Some of the technology changes have been phenomenal over the last few months, but those have implications for the team. For example, the thing I\u2019ve been trying to keep front of mind is to be very clear about our strategy for AI. Be open and transparent about the drivers and the goals with the team. It does have an impact on the team in terms of how they\u2019re going to work in the future and what type of work comes into them. So, be very open and upfront and get them engaged very early on in understanding what you\u2019re trying to achieve at the business. Because, ultimately, at the end of the day, AI is just a component of what you use to deliver support, and it\u2019s really around how AI will complement human support which ultimately gives the most compelling experience for your customers.<\/p>\n<p>Acknowledge that things will change \u2013 this kind of technological advance is not without some changes \u2013 and involve the support team in planning the changes ahead. They ultimately know your customers better than anyone else. It\u2019s really important to listen to your team and help them shape the ultimate way you\u2019re going to deliver AI.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;Be very clear about the opportunities that a move to an AI-powered support model presents for the team: less mundane work coming in, new skills required, and new roles emerging&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Thirdly, communicate early. Bring people in early and often because this is quite a dynamic environment. We\u2019re all learning as we go around exactly how AI can be applied. Technologies like Fin are really opening up new opportunities around how you think about the customer journey. Make sure you\u2019re communicating all of the changes that are happening very early on in the process, and make sure that you keep your team well-informed.<\/p>\n<p>The other really critical thing is to be very clear about the opportunities that a move to an AI-powered support model presents for the team: less mundane work coming in, new skills required \u2013 so people can hone their troubleshooting and product knowledge skills \u2013 and new roles emerging in this space. Ultimately, you\u2019re delivering more fulfilling work for the team. They can be more consultative with their customers and spend more time-solving complex problems.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Geronimo Chala is Chief Client Officer at Rebag, a website and app where you can buy, sell, and trade luxury accessories, including handbags and watches. Geronimo, like everyone in CS at the minute, is in the thick of it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Geronimo:<\/strong> Acknowledging that this change is coming was the first step we took. When we embrace AI, it\u2019s not only about the technology \u2013 it\u2019s about how the organization is set up to actually partner with this technology and use it to its maximum advantage. So, when we think about organizational changes, updating our org to manifest implementation, and managing tools within the technology, we\u2019ve got to think about whether this is going to require new roles or a different shift in what we were doing. When we look at, for example, CS agents, does this allows us to be a bit more streamlined or cater to a personalized experience? How does a CS role change?<\/p>\n<p>Support is not going away. This is not replacing human support or touch. This is just adding efficiencies and faster responses so we can actually spend our time catering to what the future is going to be for that individual the next time around on our site or one of our locations. Understanding how that structure is going to look is really important so you can manage the technology appropriately and gather insights. If managed properly, AI is going to give us a lot of in-depth knowledge on human behavior, whether that\u2019s from the type of questions coming in, how the questions are coming in, the tone of voice in that interaction, how\u2019s that impacting NPS, CSAT\u2026 How do we take this information and disperse it between departments using summarization tools that AI is already offering to really provide that next-level support? I think a lot of it has to do with organizational change and changing the mindset so you can embrace this new bit of technology that\u2019s going to transform the customer experience.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;Complex questions are what you want to have your humans handle. Some end users don\u2019t want to talk to a human for simple questions, they expect that to be handled more with self-serve&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Rati Zvirawa is our Senior Group Product Manager at Intercom. Rati, what\u2019s it like from your vantage point?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rati:<\/strong> It\u2019s been interesting talking to customers about how Fin and AI fit in the picture. Within your teams, having product experts and content experts becomes really critical. For a long time, with help centers, we\u2019ve looked at things like views, hoping customers would go there. And maybe your agents are sending that content, but we\u2019re now seeing that there\u2019s a tighter loop of feedback where the human is extremely important to help identify those gaps in content, but also how to shape that content so that AI can be powerful.<\/p>\n<p>So, it becomes this really interesting interaction. I used to work in a frontline role as well, and another change we\u2019re seeing is that you get a lot of repetitive and simple questions, and we\u2019re seeing that shift where teammates now are having to spend time on more complex questions. Complex questions are what you want to have your humans handle. Some end users don\u2019t want to talk to a human for simple questions, they expect that to be handled more with self-serve. This is the shift we\u2019re starting to see in the market.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full episode here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/828246d1-e75c-4b41-a882-671aff845a93\/episodes\/97b2d8ee-5cae-4b06-8c50-352cb6cfe0fd\/embed?theme=dark-custom&amp;primary_color=%23b994e6\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"the-ai-proof-is-in-the-pudding\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/unleashing-productivity-learn-how-ai-boosts-customer-service-team-productivity-by-14-according-to-stanford-and-mit-researchers\/\">The AI proof is in the pudding<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> 2023 also brought the proof of AI\u2019s potential in CS. Researchers from Stanford University and MIT conducted a year-long study to measure the real-world impact of generative AI among over 5000 customer service agents at a Fortune 500 software firm. The results showed that customer service worker productivity increased by 14% on average, with a staggering 35% jump among the newest or lowest-performing workers. I spoke to MIT Ph.D. candidate Lindsey Raymond, one of the researchers behind the groundbreaking study, about their work and the transformative impact of AI in the workplace.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lindsey:<\/strong> We look at a generative AI-based tool that\u2019s designed to help tech support workers when they\u2019re solving people\u2019s tech support problems. Telling them both what to say, how to solve the specific tech support problem, and also guidance on how they should communicate that to the customer.<\/p>\n<p>And we do a difference-in-difference analysis \u2013 a very slow rollout of this tool across people over time so we can try to get at the causal effect of the tool. We\u2019re looking at workers providing tech support for a Fortune 500 firm that does small business and accounting software mostly for US-based small businesses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> They looked at a lot of different outcomes, like how quickly people resolved calls, how many issues they\u2019re able to resolve, customer satisfaction, as well as some things that are more organizational change.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lindsey:<\/strong> How does this impact employee turnover? How does this impact how often they talk to each other or with their managers?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> You might be wondering why, out of all the potential areas of generative AI, Lindsey and her colleagues chose customer support to focus on.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;On average, access to AI improved productivity by 14%, but that hides a lot of heterogeneity. For the least experienced and lowest skill workers, it actually improved by 35%&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Lindsey:<\/strong> Generative AI needs a lot of data to work really well. If you look at a sector of the economy where there\u2019s high-ish penetration relative to everywhere else, customer support is that area. There\u2019s been a surprising amount of activity for the actual rollout and development of these tools. And that\u2019s because there\u2019s just so much data in that area, particularly text data.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of it is just automatically associated with outcomes \u2013 how quickly did that worker resolve that problem? And there\u2019s also a lot of room for improvement. It\u2019s a well-known fact that there are pretty huge productivity differences between your top-performing customer service agents and your bottom-performing ones. It\u2019s also an area where there\u2019s been this huge shift to doing more with contact centers over the past couple of years. And so, it\u2019s an area where there\u2019s a big business need to get better at this.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> So, over the course of a year, they studied all of this using data from 5,179 customer support agents. And what they found is intriguing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lindsey:<\/strong> The headline number is that, on average, access to AI improved productivity by 14%, but that hides a lot of heterogeneity. For the least experienced and lowest skill workers, it actually improved by 35%. The most experienced and productive workers see almost no effect.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> So, the gains accrue disproportionately to less experienced and lower-skill workers. Why does that occur?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lindsey:<\/strong> I think that is probably the most interesting part of the study. Any machine learning-based tool uses a training data set and looks for patterns in the data. So you, as a programmer, don\u2019t say, \u201cWell, I know this phrase works well, so do this, and I know this is the common solution to this problem, and this is the common solution to that problem,\u201d and you put that information in your program. That\u2019s not how ML works.<\/p>\n<p>What we think is happening is this diffusion of best practices enabled by AI. And that\u2019s why we see those really big productivity increases for the low-skill and inexperienced workers.<\/p>\n<p>In our setting, specifically, the tool looks at the conversations of the high performers and compares those to that of the low performers. It looks for differences between what the high and low performers are doing that are associated with successful outcomes. What is the way they greet customers? What are the solutions they propose? How do they start asking diagnostic questions? Then, it takes all of those things and turns those into suggestions that it generates for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>The high-skill workers are providing the content for the AI \u2013 those are mostly things they\u2019re already doing because that\u2019s where the AI has been learning that from. When you have a tool suggesting you do things you\u2019re already doing, you probably are not going to see huge productivity effects from access to that tool. It\u2019s the workers who are very new or at the bottom of the productivity ranking who really benefit from those suggestions because those are the things they haven\u2019t figured out how to do yet. It\u2019s the low-skill workers who change a lot and start moving closer to communicating like high-skill workers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Were you surprised by the results?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lindsey:<\/strong> That\u2019s a great question. In any study where you see 35% productivity increases, that\u2019s pretty shocking. You could imagine going down to a four-day workweek with those effects. I think that was pretty surprising off the bat. The fact that we saw effects not just in the workers handling calls a little bit faster, but also improving the share of problems that they solve, which is more of a knowledge-based outcome, is enabling them to solve problems that they weren\u2019t being able to solve before. And then, we see pretty big increases in customer satisfaction. Those were, I think, all surprising.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full episode here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/828246d1-e75c-4b41-a882-671aff845a93\/episodes\/8eda4517-e8d4-4d52-a5af-621a158fdbf3\/embed\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"how-are-companies-adapting-to-ai\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/adapting-to-the-ai-revolution-in-cs-discussing-our-2023-ai-report\/\">How are companies adapting to AI?<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> By June, we had released our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/resources\/guides\/state-of-ai-in-customer-service-2023?utm_source=ii-blog&amp;utm_medium=internal&amp;utm_campaign=20230614_all_wc_all_global_gl_all_support_all_aics23_aireport2023&amp;utm_content=post\">State of AI in Customer Service: 2023 report<\/a> where we dive into the top five trends transforming customer service. In a nutshell, we found that the sooner you adopt AI for your customer service strategy, the greater the chance to win a competitive edge.<\/p>\n<p>We surveyed over 1,000 global customer service professionals to find out how they\u2019re adapting to AI, how they plan to leverage AI and automation, what opportunities they hope it will bring, and their concerns. We then compiled that into our 2023 report. The report is full of additional insights and actionable tips; the link to download it is in the show notes. I sat down to talk about the trends in the report with Samuel Miller, Customer Support Operations at Dental Intelligence, Ruth O\u2019Brien, Director, Automated &amp; Proactive Support at Intercom, and John O\u2019Hara, Director of Customer Experience at Logikcull.<\/p>\n<p>The first trend \u2013 AI investment \u2013 is accelerating at a blistering pace, and there\u2019s a huge opportunity for early adopters. We found in our data that there is an investment gap. An overwhelming majority of support leaders plan to invest more in AI this year, but only 38% have actually invested in AI. This means those moving faster can gain a competitive edge while others play catch up. Ruth, if I can come to you first, why was the initial investment in AI so slow?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;The world is changing, people are trying to keep up with it, and they understand that if they get going with this, they\u2019re going to have a competitive advantage over some of their competitors&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Ruth:<\/strong> Honestly, I think it\u2019s because some of the technology in the past wasn\u2019t amazing, so people weren\u2019t convinced. It also takes time and effort to build a strategy around AI and automation. It doesn\u2019t quite just work out of the box, so there needs to be a plan around it. And in a world where customer support is very reactive, and many support teams are often running to keep up with SLAs and backlogs and long customer wait times, taking the time away from dealing with that and dealing with the immediate firefighting can be tricky, and taking space to build a proactive future in terms of AI can be hard for different teams.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> And so what changed?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ruth:<\/strong> What changed? Well, for one thing, the technology is getting better and better, especially over the course of the last maybe eight months or so. Big changes have come in the world of AI. More and more teams are either speaking with peers in the industry or interacting with good chatbots, whereas before, I think people would\u2019ve been interacting with not-so-great chatbots. The world is changing, people are trying to keep up with it, and they understand that if they get going with this, they\u2019re going to have a competitive advantage over some of their competitors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Totally. In our survey, in the top applications CS leaders identified for AI to make a big impact, you see faster responses, more consistent responses, saving money on training, and summarizing conversations. Where do you see the biggest value add for AI, John?<\/p>\n<p><strong>John:<\/strong> That\u2019s a great question. I\u2019m looking at these numbers and thinking that my team is already doing really well with speed and consistency, and we have great partnerships with customer success and training. What motivates us to focus on AI as a benefit is bandwidth. We\u2019ve got a very small team \u2013 eight US-based reps providing 24\/7 support to a global audience. AI represents effective case deflection for those simple break\/fix questions where people just need information about how the app works. That\u2019s a whole tranche of conversations that can be taken off of my team\u2019s plate so they can focus on more consultative work. That\u2019s probably the biggest driver for us.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;Some teams see AI and are thinking about headcount reductions, but how do you use the resources you have right now to go above and beyond?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> And Sam, what about you? What\u2019s the biggest value add for you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Samuel:<\/strong> For us, it\u2019s really about saving money on training because we don\u2019t have to train them on every single thing. We can just train them on the major issues they have to do, and not so much on the day-to-day things that customers can find, the knowledge articles, and stuff like that. It allows us to go deeper in the training quicker.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> And Ruth, what about you? What can we expect in the near future?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ruth:<\/strong> Honestly, faster responses have been a huge piece of efficiency for the wider team. Some teams see AI and are thinking about headcount reductions, but if you try to not do this thing where you do more with fewer heads because AI is taking care of more work for you, how do you use the resources you have right now to go above and beyond? They\u2019re answering customers immediately and taking care of some of the less complex queries, and that, in turn, is speeding up the humans to get through the queues and deal with the more complex queries. We\u2019re seeing great results in applying this technology to efficiency and response times in customer support.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full episode here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/828246d1-e75c-4b41-a882-671aff845a93\/episodes\/57042fe4-959e-4c3e-9d83-fd9d7a320410\/embed?theme=dark-custom&amp;primary_color=%23146eff\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"ai-that-suits-you\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/videos\/unlocking-productivity-with-ai-andrew-louder\/\">AI that suits you<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> The rise of AI has ushered in a new wave of possibilities for businesses seeking to optimize operations and win a competitive edge. Now, organizations are presented with a vast array of tools and solutions, each promising transformative outcomes, and the challenge lies not only in picking the right tools but also in ensuring a seamless integration and adoption.<\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s exactly Andrew Louder\u2018s area of expertise. Andrew is the founder and CEO of Louder Co., a consultancy that helps businesses develop AI strategies and processes to optimize operations and drive competitive advantage. He joined us on the show in August, and I began by asking him: What are the key differences between building and buying AI solutions? How could businesses decide which approach is more suitable for their own needs?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;Yes, it\u2019s become relatively simpler to build AI, but it still takes a lot of time, money, heartache, effort, and sleepless nights&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Andrew:<\/strong> If you and I were having this conversation five or eight years ago, the answer would be completely different. Back then, in order to get AI into your business, you more than likely had to go and build something custom, and doing that took a lot of blood, sweat, tears, money, and time. But there\u2019s been this movement of democratization of AI where the power of these tools and workflows can get into the hands of many to create powerful applications.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the analysis around build versus buy is driven by a couple of things, but it starts with awareness. You might have a vision or a problem that needs solving, and if you don\u2019t know what\u2019s out there, you may find yourself gravitating toward a decision to build. And yes, it\u2019s become relatively simpler to build AI, but it still takes a lot of time, money, heartache, effort, and sleepless nights. It\u2019s possible, and the cost has come down quite a bit, but the reason why you would consider that is that maybe there\u2019s not a solution out there that can solve your problem, so you\u2019re looking for something very unique.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you\u2019re trying to establish a major competitive differentiator, whether in the line of a new product offering or in the way you operate internally. But those are reasons you\u2019d probably want to buy if something doesn\u2019t exist already and you\u2019re looking to gain some new revenue. And obviously, when you buy something off the shelf, that\u2019s something more commonly used, accessible, relatively quick to implement, relatively inexpensive, and you\u2019re usually targeting a major operational efficiency gain too.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Are there any steps my business needs to be taking to be AI-ready?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrew:<\/strong> That\u2019s a question we hear all the time. We have an AI readiness assessment that you can take through our website, and what it gauges is not necessarily whether or not you should be utilizing AI because the blanket answer is absolutely \u2013 it\u2019s to what degree, what depth, or even at what speed of change management you should be moving or feel comfortable moving toward. We grade things on strategy operations, AI buy-in, and even the people who are part of the company to get a feel for how ready your folks might be. Are you thinking strategically with AI in mind? Do you have an AI strategy? A lot of companies end up scoring rather low on that strategy piece because they\u2019re just now starting to think about AI.<\/p>\n<p>Another opportunity I get asked quite a bit is to come and present AI to leadership teams, which we do in the form of a workshop. Then, we get into what we call our rapid assessment, which is a great starting point to identify the problems in the business that are major pain points and tedious manual tasks that need to be addressed to map those problems to potential AI solutions. We identify the quick win opportunities and get into a roadmap of selecting and implementing the right tools for them. A lot of times, it starts with the readiness assessment, building awareness in the company, finding those low-hanging fruit of AI opportunities, and implementing those to start gaining great outputs and outcomes and start getting some confidence in the business around AI.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> So, if they buy the off-the-shelf AI solution, what do you think are the most crucial factors they should consider to ensure immediate benefits and a high return on investment?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrew:<\/strong> I think it starts with an inward look. If a buddy of yours asks you, \u201cHey, I\u2019m car shopping. What car should I get?\u201d I can suggest a car, but it may not suit you, right? Do you have a family? Do you want to go fast? Do you need to tow a lot of things? So you need to determine what\u2019s going to be right for you and your business. You need to understand your processes and capture the requirements you need. You also need visibility into any security or compliance regulatory things your business or tool needs to abide by. And then, on top of that, what integration points do you need to be aware of? What systems and other applications would you want to integrate with? Once you have that list, it goes into what\u2019s out there in the marketplace that can meet as many requirements as possible and choosing the right one \u2013 not just based on those needs, but also the cost analysis. Is the juice worth the squeeze? And then you get into implementation, which is all about configuring the tool, training it, and testing it up.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;We have a client that\u2019s gone from $10 million to close to $20 million in annual revenues and didn\u2019t need to add a single person to their staff&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Change management is often overlooked, and it\u2019s a shame because you spend all this time setting things up only to allow CEOs to ditch the effort and say, \u201cHey, let\u2019s just send a link out to our folks. We believe they\u2019ll do it.\u201d They need awareness, communication, and training. Some are going to need some handholding. And that\u2019s going to really drive adoption up. We help our clients work through that whole process. And one thing I love highlighting is that we help our clients do the piloting of the system so they get good feedback from those using it. And those people using it actually become positive influencers of the change in the company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Many businesses are going to be eager to tap into AI for increased profits. Just how attainable is that, and are there companies doing it already?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrew:<\/strong> There certainly are. In my talks, I actually highlight Fin, the product by Intercom. And somebody raised their hand and said, \u201cLook, when we first started implementing Fin, we had a team of five people providing customer service support online. We rolled Fin out, and now, those five people are providing the coverage and support equivalent to 20 people.\u201d That\u2019s huge, right? That\u2019s a huge ROI. So, for that particular business that had its sights on growing, now they don\u2019t need to make that expense on the payroll. The tool is able to adapt and become that exponential factor to the employees using it.<\/p>\n<p>We have a client that\u2019s gone from $10 million to close to $20 million in annual revenues and didn\u2019t need to add a single person to their staff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> That\u2019s great to hear. But time and cost are things I hear people mention a lot when it comes to this. They\u2019re obviously essential metrics for businesses. What would you say to folks trying to develop strategies for evaluating the time and cost factors when making the decision to buy AI solutions?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Andrew:<\/strong> Look, a lot of the data\u2019s been coming out, and I\u2019ll give you three numbers to consider, okay? MIT put out a study that showed a 40% increase in productivity gains. McKinsey did a similar study that showed 30% that\u2019s going to be attained, I believe, by 2030. Deloitte put one out even before all the generative AI craze that said that AI and machine learning are going to drive a 37% productivity gain amongst business users.<\/p>\n<p>You can certainly run your own numbers, go case by case, and try to estimate, \u201cOkay, if I implement this tool, it might create 40% productivity gain, shave off 40% of hours; we\u2019re paying people X amount of dollars per hour\u2026\u201d If you can get to a number around that and do a brief calculation of time saved versus the dollar spent, it\u2019s a huge ROI. And I\u2019m also seeing the other part of the equation \u2013 the growth you can now attain without needing to increase payroll. We have a client that\u2019s gone from $10 million to close to $20 million in annual revenues and didn\u2019t need to add a single person to their staff, which would\u2019ve consisted of eight to 10 more people. That\u2019s a massive profitability gain with that growth. It\u2019s a mathematical equation you need to run for your business.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the full episode here:<\/p>\n<div class=\"oembed-wrapper oembed--youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Learn how AI can unlock productivity, according to AI founder Andrew Louder\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YSf2O0EEZBg?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 id=\"support-metrics-in-the-age-of-ai\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/ai-future-of-support-roles\/\">Support metrics in the age of AI<\/a><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> The thread of AI ran through most of our episodes this year, so it\u2019s fitting that we finish with a conversation on how AI is creating support roles, not taking them. I sat down with Christian Osmundsen, Global Head of Customer Experience at Deliverect, Ruth O\u2019Brien, Director of Automated &amp; Proactive Support at Intercom, and Sam Forde, Merchant Success Manager at Zapiet. With roles changing and strategy changing \u2013 how do we measure this? What metrics are you all keeping the closest eye on as you introduce this new technology into your support operations? Christian, how about you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christian:<\/strong> Sure, Liam. As a general rule, we always look at and ask if it\u2019s making us more efficient. That\u2019s what we\u2019re looking at first. And does it add value for our customers? We need to take a few months to see that \u2013 no hasty decisions.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-two\"><p>&#8220;We were at a 13-14% resolution rate, which isn\u2019t great. Today, we are at about 26%, so double that&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But when it comes to AI, we measure support volumes vigorously. We want to see what this looks like, not only in absolute numbers but also per account ratios, et cetera. Seeing the curves descending is encouraging for everyone. We look at response times and, of course, customer satisfaction both for the human interaction, the part where the bot is involved, and just Fin or AI resolving conversations. We are keen to see how that can develop over time. I think in the beginning, a customer can struggle with only being handled by a bot. But I think, with time, this will completely change. It\u2019s still early days.<\/p>\n<p>Last but not least, we look a lot at the answer rate for AI. I went back to prepare for this call to our reporting in May when we started. And we were at a 13-14% resolution rate, which isn\u2019t great. Today, we are at about 26%, so double that. And we have a goal towards the end of the year to be towards 35-40%. And I think that\u2019s within reach. We actually see on weekends, when customers think we are maybe not open and they are more encouraged to look for their own, that our rates immediately go up to 35%-ish.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Can anyone share anything in the way of the impact that AI has made on your KPIs so far? Sam, maybe I\u2019ll come to you first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sam:<\/strong> I echo a lot of what Christian just said there. We\u2019ve still been looking at CSAT, a traditional one, but it\u2019s not your employees talking anymore \u2013 it\u2019s Fin interacting with your people. A really important one for us though as well has been employee satisfaction within the business. We are seeing much greater retention rates. We haven\u2019t seen anybody leave our business this year. And I think the engagements they\u2019re getting in other roles is helping them actually think about having a career with us. Traditionally, support can be a role where people change quite often. But I think this is almost a golden age where you can go into support, and you\u2019re not necessarily just a support agent \u2013 you\u2019re almost a support generalist going and doing other different bits and bobs.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"pullquote-style-one\"><p>&#8220;We\u2019ve put Fin in front of 8,000 people this year. It\u2019s crazy. We\u2019ve seen our CSAT jump 20 points&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We don\u2019t have our employee satisfaction rating for this year just yet, but I can give an example where it probably would\u2019ve increased things using Fin as the backup and the AI tech that we\u2019ve had this year. Traditionally, our team retreat every year would\u2019ve been two or three days. We would\u2019ve run away as quickly as possible and then gotten back to the laptop to an inbox that hopefully hadn\u2019t gotten too big. This year, we were able to go away for a full week. And Fin let us stay on top of things and keep running. And if we can take the team away for a whole week, that\u2019s hopefully going to be amazing in that CSAT.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to actual numbers, though, we\u2019re a much smaller business, but we\u2019ve put Fin in front of 8,000 people this year. It\u2019s crazy. We\u2019ve seen our CSAT jump 20 points \u2013 we\u2019ve gone from 70% to it being regularly in the low nineties on a weekly basis. And if you look at the graph and the timings of when we implemented Fin, it literally is that timeframe.<\/p>\n<p>As Christian mentioned, those weekends and out-of-office hours are the real sweet spot. We see our Fin rating much higher on the weekends. Even though there are real people there, they\u2019re rating things much higher because they\u2019re getting that instant response at times when they wouldn\u2019t expect it. We identify as a very British brand, and we have clients in Australia and Japan, and they\u2019re getting answers straight away now. So, the CSAT has improved massively. I think that\u2019s a huge thing. If you don\u2019t jump into it just for that, I don\u2019t know why you wouldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to the full episode here:<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 200px; border: 0 none;\" src=\"https:\/\/art19.com\/shows\/828246d1-e75c-4b41-a882-671aff845a93\/episodes\/ac3be815-f239-4900-8a89-7f3bd93529c5\/embed\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Liam:<\/strong> Well, there we have it. A year of innovation and conversation. And those were just a handful of the thought leaders and experts who joined us this year. You can peruse our entire back catalog of more than 400 episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks to all of our wonderful colleagues and guests, but most importantly, thank you for listening.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our traditional end-of-year compilation is back, featuring highlights from a year of great conversations on the Inside Intercom podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":490,"featured_media":29562,"template":"","category":[25198,3],"tags":[24980,20381],"show-category":[],"coauthors":[24938],"class_list":["post-29560","intercom-podcast","type-intercom-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai-ml","category-customer-support","tag-compilation","tag-year-in-review"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.3 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>2023 in review: Highlights from this year\u2019s best conversations - The Intercom Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our traditional end-of-year compilation is back, featuring highlights from a year of great conversations on the Inside Intercom podcast.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2023-in-review-podcast-highlights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2023 in review: Highlights from this year\u2019s best conversations\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Our traditional end-of-year compilation is back, featuring highlights from a year of great conversations on the Inside Intercom podcast.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2023-in-review-podcast-highlights\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Intercom Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/intercominc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/2023-Review-Blog.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1968\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"921\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@intercom\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"51 minutes\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"Liam Geraghty\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.intercom.com\\\/blog\\\/podcasts\\\/2023-in-review-podcast-highlights\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.intercom.com\\\/blog\\\/podcasts\\\/2023-in-review-podcast-highlights\\\/\",\"name\":\"2023 in review: Highlights from this year\u2019s best conversations - 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