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Chat, The Next Digital Channel for Business Growth

Writer's picture: Michel van den BergMichel van den Berg

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

A Chat-first Vision!





In the evolution of digital engagement, we have witnessed the rise of the web and the subsequent dominance of mobile platforms. Now, as technology advances at an unprecedented pace, we stand on the cusp of a new era: the chat-first era. This transformation is set to redefine how businesses interact with customers, fundamentally altering the structure and operations of companies worldwide.


In this new Gen AI tech era, the internet will be the rails once more where business services and human needs will meet. It will be world’s apps layer on which everything will be build…empowered by AI.

Let’s have a look at how your business can transform to get ready and play in the new Gen AI world.


 

"Every individual, every organisation,every app will have their own AI assistants"


The Shift from Mobile-First to Chat-First


The "mobile-first" approach revolutionized the way businesses reached and engaged with their customers, prioritizing mobile experiences and reshaping industries. However, as we enter the chat-first era, we are seeing the emergence of a new, more personalized and intelligent form of engagement. This shift is driven by the rise of AI-powered chat systems, which promise to be the next major digital channel, alongside web and mobile.

 


As outlined in my AI Youtube production, in this chat-first world, every individual will have their own AI assistant, powered by advanced large language models (LLMs) and secure private enterprise clouds. These AI assistants will not only be capable of understanding and processing natural language but will also need to be deeply integrated with upgraded companies’ systems of record, enhanced with AI to deliver personalized, context-aware interactions.

 

The End of Branded Apps: The Rise of Personal AI Assistants

 

The advent of chat-first interactions signals the decline of branded apps as the primary interface between businesses and consumers. Instead of opening a specific app like Kayak to book a holiday or a food delivery app to order dinner, in the near future consumers will increasingly rely on their personal AI assistants to handle these tasks.


Imagine a future where, instead of navigating through multiple apps, you simply instruct your AI assistant—let's call it "Jennai"—to plan your vacation or order your dinner. Jennai, having access to your preferences, past interactions, and a wealth of information from various platforms, can seamlessly manage these tasks, delivering a more efficient and personalized experience.


No replacement, rather Augmentation


With the right AI governance in place humans and AI will co-exist symbiotically. AI should be governed in such a way that human capabilities will be augmented and increase an individual’s (=customer) productivity. AI should help to solve problems, enhance a new creativity and decision-making.



"Humans and AI will co-exist symbiotically....

......Chatbots will be run by AI, humans by humans!"



A dual governance system is much more likely on the horizon. AI will take care of the system part of a corporations, not the human part. Chatbots will be run by AI, humans by humans. Alike how airplanes will be operated. Not by two pilots as today and in the past. Just one robotic system pilot and one human pilot. Would you step in an airplane, knowing there are only robotics in the cockpit?


2024/2025: Chatbot and Virtual development will be prime business playing field


This symbiotic collaboration will look like AI agents (or bots) running most digital process flows.  First (chat) bots are now taking over the first business processes already, being customer operations.

On the business side, these bots will soon be integrated with other business processes.

At the other end of the business spectrum we will see the customers which interact with your business, e.g. through their private bot or digital assistant.


 "Brand Strategy and Digital marketing will radically need to change"


A digital personal assistant will be in charge of arranging daily life activities from arranging dinner to booking your next business trip or vacation. To have an idea on how customers will  interact with your brand have a look at 'PI', an intelligent digital assistant who helps to organise your daily life activities. A future outlook, brands should pay attention too, if they want to be part of these new ways we will live in the future.


Everybody will have their own AI assistant, powered by LLMs and private enterprise clouds and upgraded system of record (with AI). Get your bot ready to take on these customer conversations and augment the complex customer questions, complaints or sales opportunities by your agents.


AI systems can operate 24/7 without fatigue, process enormous amounts of information at lightning speed and make data driven decisions.


AI can allocate resources more optimally and mitigate disruptions proactively.

While this is transforming corporations in the foreseeable future, unlikely it will replace humans. As stated before, I don’t believe in full replacement of humans in corporations.


Trust and acceptance, from humans active in the corporate ecosystem (employees, customers, stakeholders) will stay to be critical. Humans will be required to deal with people-related and complex tasks, delivering intuition, nuanced decisions and trade-offs, required simply at the regulatory level and guarantee on the human need empathy.  

 

Implications for Businesses: A Paradigm Shift


The transition to a chat-first paradigm will require significant changes in how businesses are set up and operate. Traditional models, centered around websites and mobile apps, will need to adapt to this new reality. Companies will need to rethink their customer engagement strategies, invest in AI and machine learning technologies, and ensure their systems of record are equipped to support these advanced AI-driven interactions.

 

Moreover, businesses will need to focus on integrating their services with these AI assistants, ensuring that their offerings are easily accessible and seamlessly integrated into the AI-driven ecosystem. This may involve rethinking product design, service delivery, and even marketing strategies to align with the preferences and behaviors of AI-assisted consumers. 


Get ready for incumbents and other competitive forces which will use AI to build AI, to be used to build better AI-powered products, which will learn faster than you and with product iteration going very fast.


Conversational AI at the base of faster, personal and more relevant conversations with consumers, employees and scientists will revolutionize fields like healthcare to retail to banking. AI becoming more intelligent by the day will also making current businesses obsolete, possibly in accelerated fashion.

 

Knowledge-based businesses...be aware !


The business world will transform to a world of infinite intelligence.

The level of AI currently is on an human IQ level of around 100, the average IQ level of the human kind. This will soon explode to 400, to a 1000, to…, not in decades, not in years, in months.....!


One can find different interesting sources of what will happen (soon) on this growth towards infinite intelligence or super intelligence from various interesting reads (Read the book Life 3.0) from Max Tegmark and Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom , director of future of humanity Institute and professor at University of Oxford)


Knowledge to business will becoming infinite and will be like what water is to life.

Extrapolating this on what will change the business world, it basically looms towards an unprecedented digital business transformation.


AI has benefits and challenges. It will revolutionize many knowledge fields of work like in healthcare, education, transportation but also business management (as in decision making and governance) and even new AI powered company incumbents threatening your own companies' defensibility.


Chatbots - Apps on Steroids


In the chat-first era, the new influencers are the new generations digital apps, riding the rails of internet. Those apps are likely to sit on the popular chat apps like Whatsapp.


Messaging apps like slack, Whatsapp, Alexa (voice-controlled) and social networks  benefit from having strong network effects. The same is for operating systems like iOS , windows, Android. Network effects mean that for each additional (business) user of your (digital) product (b2C or B2b) build on these networks, apps or OS accrue value to every other user.


For the average company, its important for their survival to optimize network effects working for them.

AWS and Azure are also generating network effects, likely they even generate network effect on steroids, from which companies can benefit by building apps as systems of intelligence natively upon their cloud systems. Network effects on steroids as on those cloud system, its where the customer and data are.

 

The infinite Intelligence infrastructure side of things


For your company to play along those LLM apps need to pass through a number of architecture related toll gates:

-          Moved to the cloud

-          Build on open source

-          Consumed by Apple iphone (or Tesla)

-          And fueled by AI and data


While being at the topic of architecture, lets see the real game changers on a tech level

Owners of the so-called foundation models release APIs and plugins. Foundation models (open AI, chat gpt, Antropic (Claude) and for sure LLAmA from Meta) are trained on trillions of parameters and cost hundreds of millions to train (computing resources are GPU (NVIDIA), not intel, CPUS).

Foundation models are a tool for unlocking value across all your systems of record.


Data frameworks, a new layer of System Intelligence sitting between customer-facing apps and your system of record sitting in between, for example a popular data framework like LLAMA-index. These data frameworks are designed to support LLM based applications (like a chatbot) and to integrate them with (your specific own corporate) diverse data sources


Look at cloud and SAAS services with these foundation models inside (e.g. KORE AI, Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft Copilot) as they start to have strong economies of scale which benefit the ‘ordinary’ companies applying this as it helps the defensibility of their business and t to scale revenues and grow customer base, while keeping core engineering of whatever product flat.


VAs can become a system of Intelligence when they are built to cross multiple data sets (sitting in a private company cloud) and multiple systems of record.

Those are not the traditional  systems of record but data sitting in marketing and customer operations applications. For instance a system of intelligence (LLM) application combines web analytics, customer data, social data, churn and LTV data that serves timely, relevant and personal data.


Platforms like Kore AI and AmigoX provide your company with the ability to build your own chat intelligent systems and integrate your bots and VA’s on the winning platforms like Whatsapp.


However, companies that focus too much on technology without putting it in a customer problem context will be caught.

On that other side of the spectrum , the marketing side, AI provides new capabilities to tap for example into new segments and excel in customer retention and loyalty.


Apps ♥ AI - The Art of Customer Happiness


In marketing and sales , AI is capable to analyse consumer behaviour patterns, especially when more customer interaction data is collected and analysed centrally in data management and marketing intelligence systems, predicting consumer trends and developing (product and marketing) strategies to match.


VAs will help detect customers needs and customer problems – Therefore customer operations is such an operational place of value (not only for efficiency, also for customer retention and new customers).


The value of companies will be the ability to develop on sources of intelligence.


Today’s companies need to build systems of intelligence (AI powered applications). The new moats. Defensibility. To keep on accruing value to companies. Companies that build great customer experiences with (conversational) AI will keep on accruing value.

 

At the heart of this transformation are intelligent chat systems, such as PI (A Personal Intelligence Assistance platform), developed by forward-thinking company Inflection AI. These systems represent the next generation of digital assistants, capable of not only answering queries but also understanding the nuances of user preferences, adapting to individual communication styles, and performing complex tasks with minimal input.


These AI-driven chat systems will act as the new front line of customer engagement, replacing traditional interfaces and offering a more conversational, human-like interaction. As they evolve, they will become indispensable tools for both consumers and businesses, reshaping how services are delivered and consumed.


The role of the business analyst


Building systems of intelligence requires a business analyst with strong business acumen and analytical capabilities because they can effectively translate complex data, business processes, and enterprise workflows into actionable insights.


AI business Analyst bridge the gap between IT and business. Just like in the previous tech waves of web and mobile


Their expertise ensures that AI-driven systems align with organizational goals and deliver real value, just as analysts were crucial in guiding digital transformations during the web and mobile-first eras. Understanding both the technical and business aspects, they bridge the gap between technology and strategy, ensuring that the new systems are not only intelligent but also relevant and impactful.

 

Embracing the Future


The chat-first era represents a monumental shift in the digital landscape, one that promises to redefine how businesses interact with their customers. As AI-powered chat systems become the new standard for engagement, companies that embrace this change will be well-positioned to thrive in the future.


Chat, this new digital channel will not only enhance customer experiences but also open up new opportunities for innovation and growth. By leveraging the power of AI and intelligent chat systems, businesses can create more meaningful, personalized interactions that resonate with customers on a deeper level, ultimately driving success in the chat-first world.

 

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