Customer experience in the AI era: A CWO Dinner event summary
City Social was abuzz with excited chatter, as Cloudera & AWS partnered with us to host some of the city’s brightest IT and CX minds. The evening’s topic: Skyrocketing business growth with AI-powered CX.
"A genuinely interesting mix of tech and non-tech, and lots of discussion... I thoroughly enjoyed it and have numerous connections to follow up with."
– Chief Data Engineer, S&P Global
From aspiration to implementation
Christopher Royles, Cloudera’s Field CTO for EMEA, kicked off the conversation by noting that lots of organisations are saying the correct things without managing to take action.
He pointed out that these organisations are struggling to harness their own bespoke customer data, and therein lies the opportunity to optimise every customer touchpoint as the beginning of a data journey. Each touchpoint gathers data, which in turn informs content, which is used to further personalise data.
This framework is already in use by many airlines and retailers, offering shoppers and passengers enhanced, bespoke experiences based on real-time data analytics and integrated AI within the customer journey. Christopher stated that it’s essential to first open data access within ethical frameworks. Data cannot be gatekept by data owners and execs; not if you want to use it to its full potential.
The stagnating search for perfect data
All present seemed to agree that many organisations make the mistake of trying to build the perfect data estate for AI implementation before adopting any tools for any use cases.
The AWS and Cloudera voices in the room advised everyone to start by looking for efficiencies on a smaller scale. Automating a document workflow requires different datasets than an AI call centre agent, and each use case needs to be addressed for its unique needs.
There is also a perception that AI implementation and cloud migration cannot co-exist, that one simply uses too much resource to execute the other simultaneously. But it needn’t be that way.
It's essential to open data access within ethical frameworks. Data cannot be gatekept by data owners and execs; not if you want to use it to its full potential.
Is AI just Gen AI now?
As discussion among guests deepened, many made the point that others commonly assume every AI conversation is about generative AI.
While there is undeniably a hype that’s caused a panic-induced boom and muddied the water, the hype itself appears to be justified.
Across accessibility and potential use cases, generative AI breaks more boundaries than traditional AI tooling. In applying it to businesses as widely as possible, it’s essential to adopt a multi-model approach. Not every use case is going to be applicable to each individual organisation. Nor is every objective going to lend itself to the same kind of Gen AI integration. Therefore, finding and stress testing each use case is an incredibly valuable exercise.
For example, financial services organisations are finding great success using Gen AI to manage, predict, and secure huge amounts of risk and capital exposure.
Large scale simulations, language barriers, and potentially even some of the world’s most challenging problems can be partially or wholly solved by intelligent Gen AI use.
AI and CX is a journey
As the evening drew to a close with our famous Chief Wine Officer tasting competition and the dessert course, the variability of people and organisations’ journeys was emphasised. Industry specific use cases and requirements will always be a concern, and so will AI-ready data — but there is technology available to help along the way to AI-powered CX.
Christopher Royles ended by stating that if guests could take one thing away, it’s to do everything you do for the customer. If that principle guides your investment, implementations, and innovations, then the work will shine through.
Looking for a human way to
reach the C-suite?
Join the likes of Google Cloud, AWS, Slack, Lenovo and Microsoft in trusting us to help convert your ideal targets with a Chief Wine Officer event just like this one.