Survey Reveals What Organisations Think about AI in 2024 (And Beyond)

Almost overnight, Artificial Intelligence (AI) grabbed the attention of organisations and individuals around the globe. With “AI” quickly becoming somewhat of a buzzword, we decided to find out what organisations really think about its impact. In partnership with Sabio and Genesys, we sent a survey to over 30,000 members of our Engage Customer community, asking them how they view AI in 2024, how they are using (or planning to use) this new technology, what challenges they face with its adoption, and how they envision the future.

DOES AI PLAY A CRITICAL PART IN CX OPERATIONS TODAY?

When asked how they currently view AI’s impact on CX operations, most respondents (41.94%) said that it is a nice-to-have that will likely grow in importance over the coming years. Similarly, 39.29% said it will become a critical part of CX operations in the next 2-3 years, while 12.12% already view it as a key component. Interestingly, only 6.06% said it is not important to their CX operations.

Consistent with these findings, only 15.15% said they have no plans for AI-led interactions yet, while 24.24% reported that more than 20% of their interactions are already AI-led or -enabled. Taking this further, the top three areas in which organisations are currently using (or planning to use) AI are conversational AI, agent assistance, and predictive analytics. Respondents also revealed that conversational AI chatbots are proving to deliver the most value at the moment (27.78%).

USING AI TO IMPROVE CX AND EX

It is important to highlight that AI has the potential to not only enhance the customer experience but also the employee experience (EX). Knowing this, we asked our community how they are currently using new technology to improve EX at their organisations.

According to the results, the majority of respondents are using robotic process automation to reduce employee effort, prompting next-best actions in real time to employees, and forecasting/scheduling to measure employee productivity. Moreover, organisations report either seeing or expecting to see significant improvement in the next two years as a result of their AI adoption in these areas.

To better understand the outcome of implementing AI, we asked what business, customer engagement, and employee engagement results our community recorded. Responding to these questions, the survey participants shared that they saw increased first-contact resolution (71.43%), increased customer satisfaction (78.26%), and increased agent productivity (63.64%), respectively.

Further exploring AI’s current (and potential) impact on the workforce, the survey asked participants what new AI-related roles they have created, hired for or plan to hire for in the future. The top roles include Chatbot Analyst (21.21%) and AI User Experience Designer (15.15%). AI Strategist, AI Business Analyst, Data Privacy Specialist, and Data Scientist are also viewed as key AI-related roles, with 9.09% of respondents pointing to them.

THE CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED WITH AI ADOPTION

Based on the survey’s answers, it is obvious that the adoption of AI can elevate the customer and employee experience, resulting in business growth. However, organisations in 2024 are facing numerous challenges when implementing AI. Some of these obstacles are a lack of AI readiness (69%), regulatory or data privacy concerns (62%), a lack of overarching AI strategy (55%), budget concerns (52%), ethical concerns (41%), and data silos (35%).

A whopping 96% agree or strongly agree that “balancing customer privacy with AI-driven personalisation will become increasingly challenging”. Similarly, 97% agree or strongly agree that “we won’t be able to trust generative AI to act without human intervention for the foreseeable future”.

Despite customers responding well to AI-driven CX initiatives (61%), organisations are also struggling to prove their ROI (75%).

HOW CAN SOLUTION PROVIDERS HELP?

Considering the above challenges, organisations are actively seeking assistance from solution providers. More specifically, they need help with addressing concerns relating to security and privacy data (79%), understanding AI capabilities (49%), integration challenges with existing systems (43%), and ethical/legal considerations and regulatory compliance (34%).

When asked about their preferred operating models, 59% shared that they would prefer a tool-based model where they have control over the AI tools and infrastructure, whereas 30% want a collaboration model where they share responsibilities with the AI provider.

While organisations are seeking assistance from solution providers, they are encountering numerous obstacles that hinder them from selecting the ideal partner. The top issues were found to be difficulty in assessing partner expertise/credibility and challenges in aligning partner costs with the budget (50%), concerns about data security and privacy practices (45%), and limited flexibility to accommodate changing project needs (25%).

In addition to these challenges, organisations further struggle with providers’ inability to provide references/case studies from previous AI projects, their lack of transparency in processes and methodologies, and their limited understanding of their business domain.

WHAT WILL THE NEXT DECADE LOOK LIKE?

Although AI is rapidly evolving, there are certain things that the technology cannot yet do. Addressing this, our community shared that they would like AI to have the ability to anticipate and proactively address customer needs (67%), provide real-time personalised recommendations (57%), streamline and automate complex problems (43%), enable seamless cross-channel experiences (36%) and improve predictive analytics for better decision-making (33%).

Looking to the future, most organisations want AI to play an exploratory (39.19%) or supportive (39.19%) role in their overall business strategy. A further 17.54% want it to have an integral role, with the remaining participants saying AI will have limited relevance to their business strategy.

Considering these findings, it is clear that AI adoption is not a trend and that organisations have only just begun laying out the foundations on which it will grow and evolve.

If you’re eager to find out more about how AI’s future will impact your organisation, you can view our recent webinar on harnessing productive conversations through technology: The Future of CX : Harnessing Technology to Drive Productive Conversations (engagecustomer.com)