Five great AI use cases I’ve seen
There's an undeniable buzz around generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) these days, and it's fascinating to see some of the innovative applications emerging in this space. While chatbots are everywhere—serving important roles in many scenarios—there's a much broader spectrum of opportunities that generative AI can offer organizations beyond these standard implementations.
I am fortunate to speak to a lot of people on a daily basis about this in my role, so I wanted to share some thoughts in the spirit of helping to inspire you on other opportunities you may not yet have considered.
1. Chatbots
I wanted to push the boundaries a bit in this article and not include chatbots, but on reflection it would be remiss of me to do so as I still see a huge opportunity for them, especially as advancements in tech make it far easier to build and deploy them than a year ago.
The appeal of intelligent chatbots largely lies in their ability to help users search for and find information quickly. Generative AI’s ability to efficiently sift through multiple search results to deliver the most relevant information for specific queries offers a massive time saver across many job roles.
One of the bigger opportunities for these are in call centres, and I generally recommend organisations develop a strategic approach to enhance the customer journey, which unfolds in a few key stages:
Enhancing Call Center Operations: Initially, chatbots are deployed to assist call centre agents. This reduces Average Call Handling Time (AHT) and boosts customer satisfaction. By speeding up finding answers to routine inquiries, agents can focus on more complex issues, enhancing efficiency.
Extending to Web Interfaces: Once the chatbot system proves reliable, organizations can refine their search indexes to prioritize customer-friendly content. This allows the chatbot to be extended to web chat interfaces, enabling customers to self-serve and find answers to common questions easily.
Integrating with Voice Channels: The next logical step is to add voice capabilities, integrating chatbots with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. This integration helps deflect calls, further enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing the costs associated with manual handling.
Further info: There’s a great interview with Jennifer Lowry, a Senior Director at Microsoft’s in charge of their 45,000 agent contact centre. She discusses some of the huge benefits her team have seen by leveraging AI. It’s worth a listen to. Power Time (Episode 10)
While these advancements in chatbot technology are impressive, they merely scratch the surface of what else I see that generative AI can achieve. Here are four other compelling use cases that I’ve seen and expect to become more popular over the next 12 months:
2. Streamlining Purchase Order and Invoice Processing: For organizations with shared inboxes, such as accounts@theirdomain.com, AI can automatically review and process incoming email attachments. For instance, it can extract information from a Purchase Order (PO)—like customer names and product details—and input it into Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for seamless processing. It can also automate responses, sending a thank-you email to confirm the order is being processed.
Further info: Ignite Breakout Session 176: Automate e-mail, doc, and image processing (scroll to 20 minutes)
3. Intelligent Routing: At a recent Ignite event, McKinsey showcased an AI solution developed on Microsoft’s Power Platform. This system parses emails and routes inquiries to the right person, reducing the time to find the appropriate consultant by 90%. Such a solution can be extended to automate replies to customer support inquiries, offering preliminary steps for customers to resolve issues before a consultant intervenes.
Further info: McKinsey - Unlock Autonomous Agent Capabilities with Copilot Studio
4. Customer Feedback Management: Earlier this year, Coles spoke about how they process 40,000 customer feedback messages weekly using generative AI. This innovative approach operates behind the scenes, classifying and enriching datasets without a user interface. Feedback is matched to specific stores, providing store managers with targeted guidance for improvements, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Further info: Coles turns GenAI onto 40,000 customer comments a week
5. Leveraging Images for Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S): With the multimodal capabilities of GPT-4, combining images with text has become seamless. The Power Platform team demonstrated an intelligent app for lost and found items, where photos of found items are used to create descriptions. These descriptions are matched against a database of reported lost items, facilitating the matchmaking process. This approach can be extended to OH&S, where images help identify potential safety hazards.
Further info: Ignite Breakout Session 176: Automate e-mail, doc, and image processing (scroll to 33 minutes)
Every day I see Generative AI reshaping the landscape of business operations, offering potential across a wide array of applications. From enhancing customer interactions and streamlining internal processes to improving safety measures and enriching data, the possibilities are vast.