This was a great week for AI companies signing business agreements, with Zendesk revealing new AI agents who are supposed to be able to resolve 80% of customer service issues, humanity and IBM announce a strategic partnership and Deloitte also announces a deal. In addition, Google has announced a new Ai-for-Business platform.
This does not mean that it is going to be smooth sailing for large organizations that use AI. In fact, the timetable for Deloitte’s announcement was a bit embarrassed, coming on the same day that Australia’s Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations stated that the professional services and the consulting company should refund the refund for the delivery of an exhibition to the department with what they seemed to be.
About the latest episode of Podcast Equity, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed the latest AI titles, as opposed to last week’s news about the new Sora app. While AI companies can ultimately make real money from consumer social networking applications, business agreements offer a more immediate course to significant revenue.
You can read a preview of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Anthony: I think this is really linked to our discussion last week for some of these Genai social networks. We had been framed that as possible as a way that these AI companies could eventually make money, which I certainly think is going on, but there is a long way to get there. And business, sometimes people don’t find it as interesting or sexy as the consumer, [but] It is actually where real money is.
Maybe Sora is how Openai will make money five years from now, but this will win these companies now.
And Deloitte [news] It was particularly impressive. Sometimes you can feel like a little broken record to point out how these models [aren’t always] Completely ready for prime time, but I think it encourages that the Australian government really pushed back and said, no, you can’t do that.
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It is not necessary that no one should ever use AI in creating these reports, though I think you could do this argument. But if you are going to do so, you must really be responsible for the exits. You have to really go through and make sure the information mentioned is real. You can’t feed it to a model and only [say] “Okay, my job is done, but there will be many charges.” I think anyone who does this must be ashamed and fined.
Kirsten: Absolutely. Sean, Zendesk also had a statement this week and really create these tools that are going to handle almost all customer service, essentially removing man from this process. In your daily life [life]How do you go for the world or how automakers deal with the service, for example, you begin to see this kind [automation] Do you turn over?
Son: Yes, I’ve written about it sometimes. There is a bundle of different newly established businesses developing full customer service suites, vocal agents, llms for emails and texts [from] Delegations and Service Centers. I really think it’s a worthy idea, because the problem doesn’t exist: we don’t have enough people for jobs to do these things and is going to get their job away. Is that you can never take someone on the phone or bounce around.
Especially going for service, you will bounce to the service department. Everyone is busy. So, if you can record it accurately and make it easier for people to receive an answer, the question for me is how much these businesses will adopt and stick with it. There have been all kinds of technologies over the years, such as tissue forms and such things, where their representatives have done, but then forget about it. And then she sits on their website and you think it’s going to work, and then doesn’t work because they just want to call them.
So I have some optimism and hope that such things will really be the first point of contact of people [a business]. And it seems we are going to learn.
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and publishes every Wednesday and Friday.
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