Intercom gets it

Intercom gets it.

As a leading customer support platform, they were one of the first companies to go all-in on their AI capabilities once chatGPT-like tools emerged.

(In fact they had been working on their own in-house AI projects for years before. Intercom knew the impact that chatGPT would have and were ready to pounce. It focused, and quickly became an AI-first company, changing many parts of their organisation.)

More specifically, they could see that the impact on the people behind the screen would be immense:

"…customer service teams will get smaller. This is inevitable, but it isn’t the doom and gloom people project. Many teams have high staff turnover, and constantly open roles, and this will reduce pressure. It will give managers more time to invest in growing their people.

The customer service job will get much more interesting, and rewarding. Reps will only deal with more complicated questions, or really important customers. The job will still be about human connection, empathy, but also deep problem solving. Reps will have more time to provide the excellent customer service they are striving for.

New types of jobs will emerge in the customer service team. The customer experience that blends AI and reps needs to be designed, to be orchestrated. And it needs to be analysed and improved."

Bingo. AI has it’s perils and promises, and as with any new technology, finding a balance between capability and responsibility will be a major factor in regarding AI as a success in your business, or not.

Asking “How does this AI tool make things better for our people?” is a great place to start.

PS: Intercom - also pretty funny.