Sceptics have had plenty of reasons to be wary of AI; as outlined in this creepy exposé into the dark side of AI-powered chatbots, misinformation and seemingly destructive desires are included in the list, as well as the posed risk of amplifying certain, existing biases, and compromising creativity.

In the business world, teams may suffer from a scarcity mindset when it comes to AI, fearing new technology will render their current job functions obsolete. But on the other hand, as unearthed in Aircall’s AI Index, 70% of employees in customer support roles and 65% of those in sales feel confident in using (or at least the prospect of using) AI in customer-facing functions.

Rather than buying into the belief that generative technologies mean abandoning ‘big-picture thinking’ (and with it, creativity and personalisation), businesses must work to bridge the dichotomy between the AI-averse and those already implementing it. This will require a mindset shift among customer support and sales teams.

Could AI Supercharge Creativity and Customisation?

It’s said that innovators are often ‘strategic copiers’; people who innovate learn from examples of success and extract the parts that work well to birth new and meaningful ideas. By embracing AI tools and assistants, enterprising employees are able to repeatedly test and learn — enabling them to become more productive (and, in turn, more creative) in the long-run.

This means businesses that have long been gathering customer data from phone calls and product usage information can now use this to continually optimise all customer touchpoints — from messaging to personalisation, and delivery of the overall user experience.

It’s what smart-home technology company Brinks did in a bid to compete with the likes of Ring and Google Home, using AI to cross-sell product recommendations and level-up its messaging. With rigorous, daily A/B testing, Brinks has been able to evolve more quickly, seeing its average direct-to-consumer (DTC) package increase from £393 to £779 in the first half of 2021.

Brands can customise their customer experiences at scale by leveraging insights based on data harvested from AI around consumer behaviour. This can look like product recommendations and customised deals based on past purchases or browsing history. On a more creative level, AI can help to spark initial ideas, with 33% of marketers using the technology for this purpose.

Accelerating Connection and Productivity With AI

Some argue that AI could drain the life out of interpersonal relationships, but this isn’t necessarily the case. On the contrary, AI could actually make more time for one-to-one interactions by freeing up our cognitive load and, in its path, leaving more time for learning and development; in fact, 76% of teams are already using generative AI (GAI) for administrative tasks, while 79% plan to use it for analytics, and 73% for creative.

But there is still a long way to go before we see mass adoption. Today, just 4.2 hours of the working week are spent on meaningful customer interactions despite 63% seeing this as imperative to improving business metrics like revenue and customer satisfaction. If AI can help to streamline day-to-day elements such as onboarding and listening back to calls and voicemails, people in sales and support roles may be able to claw back time previously lost to ‘work about work’ and invest it into meaningful customer interactions capable of converting.

Privacy vs Accessibility: Finding the Balance

Convenience often comes at a cost, and while GAI will surely transform the ways in which we live and work, there are still challenges to overcome; when it comes to using AI assistive technology like generators and chatbots in particular, there is a degree of security we sacrifice in return.

Data has been coined “the new oil”, whether it’s that which steers our Netflix recommendations or our email marketing preferences. With GAI, there is the risk of data leaks — which have already cropped up in ChatGPT. The more personal data that is collected, the more there is at stake in terms of privacy. This implicates tech giants, some of which have subsequently restricted their employees’ use of AI, and whose customer service model is built on stored personal data.

First-party customer data is generative AI gold. But in order to turn the current narrative on its head, customer-facing teams must reach an ethical equilibrium where privacy and AI-assistive tools can support connection and productivity, and empower more human-driven work.

By allocating more time to AI training, investing in new technology and utilising it wisely, businesses can make sound judgments about how they implement new tech while being privacy compliant and creating more meaningful, human conversations.

Madelyn DePrey is VP of Customer Success at Aircall.