We’ve all been there.
Stuck at the end of a chatbot exchange, frustrated at not being able to find a solution, and stranded without any human help.
That is the scenario which causes so many consumers, and businesses, to take a cynical view when it comes to chatbots, and agentic AI; that it’s merely a cost-saving measure that doesn’t work as well as someone walking you through it over the phone, or scheduling a maintenance visit to just fix it in-person.
According to a recent study,85% of customer service leaders will explore or pilot conversational generative AI, like chatbots; - but an alarming80% of people said they were frustrated with their experience.
ACapgemini Research study further found that 7 in 10 businesses want a simplified customer experience from telecom providers — but most struggle to deliver it.
Chatbots are a good idea in theory, but they have not always delivered solutions. Organizations are both dependent on them for freeing up time and resources, while acknowledging there are some serious limitations. They shouldn’t be abandoned though, chatbots need refining and improving.
Businesses need something straightforward, and which works, while customers want their queries resolved in a timely and professional manner.
Currently, AI agents like chatbots are still relying to some extent on human agency. A recent McKinsey report showed27% of respondents whose organizations use gen AI say employees still review all content created by gen AI before it is used - including chatbot answers. This makes it less efficient and means there is still room for human error. If AI is to become more reliable, cheaper and requiring less human input, it needs better data.
What if AI couldsee the problem?
Agentic AI is only as powerful as the data it is trained on and as more advanced AI systems become accessible, guiding them with visual stimuli and data is the next step in upskilling these machines to make autonomous decisions based on what they can see - or more accurately, what they are trained to see.
Visual-driven agentic AI looks at the challenge at multiple levels. It automates issue detection and resolution with AI-powered diagnostics and 3D heatmaps.
With highly sophisticated, human-like Agentic AI assistants, which integrate vision and multimodal intelligence, combining the ability to interrogate an issue while providing clear and actionable solutions, far surpasses what a conventional chatbot could ever offer.
Visual agentic AI allows an AI assistant to determine whether it needs to fix connectivity on Wi-Fi, or help a consumer looking to buy a product. It’s AI that has evolved from just analyzing data to being intuitive, and delivering personalized solutions and decisions.
This means customers are not dealing with a chatbot’s restricted one dimensional interpretation of the problem, but rather one which can engage visually, presenting a query in 3D. This inevitably has a positive effect onfirst-call resolution rates, and overall customer satisfaction.
There’s less friction between telecom providers and businesses, and the knock-on effect is for the customers who call up these companies - you and me. We benefit from smoother services and in the long run, lower prices, as operational efficiencies lead to cost savings across an organization.
Dual benefit of joined-up connectivity
Agentic AI not only is a mechanism for reducing costs but a catalyst for driving growth too, with the ability to offer a customer additional services while providing the fix in real-time, capitalizing on opportunities which otherwise wouldn’t exist. A recent study showed the primary reason companies wereadopting agentic AI was to drive revenue.
And it’s not just large businesses and SMEs which need connectivity. It’s also the customers themselves and never has this been more important, for two key reasons.
Firstly, the modern home is littered withup to 20 devices using Wi-Fi. When the internet goes down, so too does the functionality on everything from your smart TV and laptop, to your heating and smart assistants, like Google Home.
All businesses experience a certain tension between maximizing profit and keeping customers happy. The proliferation of AI chatbots has tried to walk that tightrope, but they haven’t always been fit for purpose. Chatbots have been seen as a way to do laborious or tedious tasks, when actually they can and should be tailored to enhance operations, and improve customer experience, and a big part of that is training them with more reliable and accurate data.
Giving AI the ability to see bridges that gap, streamlines the process for troubleshooting on connectivity issues, while making sure customers get the solutions they need.
Putting the intelligence in AI
The systems in place will also reinforce learning. A problem that needs troubleshooting, will inform future decision-making by AI, at detection and solution levels.
And connectivity is only the start. Now visual agentic AI is being used to help customers stay connected, but as systems improve and become more refined, there’s no end to the possibilities.
It has been applied tohealthcaresystems, with medical imaging and diagnostics, autonomous vehicles,securityand crowd management, and it could be rolled out for retail more widely, in everything from inventory management to e-commerce.
The possibilities for visual agentic AI are matched by their benefits, for both consumers and organizations; with more efficient processes, lower costs and a better user experience for troubleshooting.
It’s time for organizations, which overwhelmingly rely on inadequate chatbots, to embrace the next generation of Agentic AI, one which has the human-like sense and AI-powered knowhow to solve customer problems intuitively and effectively like never before.
The views expressed in this article belong solely to the author and do not represent The Fast Mode. While information provided in this post is obtained from sources believed by The Fast Mode to be reliable, The Fast Mode is not liable for any losses or damages arising from any information limitations, changes, inaccuracies, misrepresentations, omissions or errors contained therein. The heading is for ease of reference and shall not be deemed to influence the information presented.
