Today at VentureBeat Transform 2024, Zendesk joined an impressive speaker lineup of leading industry executives from Anthropic, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Microsoft, OpenAI, and more in exploring the latest in generative AI enterprise applications.
As part of the panel, “Transforming CX with Gen AI: Insights from Industry Leaders,” Zendesk Chief Technology Officer Adrian McDermott explained why AI is set to be the most significant technological disruptor in CX history and how companies can make strategic decisions that utilize the technology to benefit every role in CX – customers, agents, admins, and business leaders.
Supported by a first look at Zendesk research from the upcoming Future of AI Powered CX in 2027 report, Adrian previewed what senior CX leaders (VP+) from around the world think CX will look like in 2027, as 77% of CX leaders think traditional CX will give way to radically different industry dynamics. Additional findings include:
- CX leaders expect big changes and have plans to meet it head on quickly with AI. They are bracing for a transformative shift in customer experience over the next three years, yet feel generally positive even though they anticipate the pace of change will continue to increase.
- CX leaders have a sense of the potential impacts of AI on their support organizations. This includes changes to the size of their organization, the skill sets needed for the future, growth in transaction volume, and huge advances in the quality of overall customer experiences.
- The new CX organization will be lean, fast, and effective. The result of those organizational changes will be felt downstream by customers, who will experience greatly improved service quality and benefit from the power of AI in receiving instant, personalized service across channels.
Moderated by UneeQ Chief Executive Officer Danny Tomsett, the conversation covered the role that emotional connection plays in customer interactions. Specifically, Adrian and fellow panelists from eBay and Wayfair discussed how generative AI can continue to center CX all around the customer by identifying how people feel throughout the entire journey and interjecting with a human touch when necessary.
Zendesk’s The Future of AI Powered CX in 2027 report will launch on Tuesday, July 23.