Until OpenAI’s ChatGPT became one of the hottest technologies to ever go mainstream, interest in and knowledge of “generative AI” was far from widespread. We certainly all knew the power of AI was going to continue to advance and be transformational, but the idea of using it to actually “generate” new content like a human was difficult to comprehend. Yet, here we are with ChatGPT being used to write new essays, emails, social media posts, images, poems and more….and the number of people using it is skyrocketing. In fact, along with Meta’s new Threads, ChatGPT and its AI language model have become one of the fastest-growing 'apps' of all time, surpassing even TikTok.
The rapid success of generative AI has led many executives to wonder if there is an opportunity for them to leverage this technology to run their businesses more efficiently or to better serve their customers & partners. The answer is a resounding yes! Generative AI can drive efficiencies, cut costs, and free up time and money so that CSPs can drive innovation and transform their business for long-term success.
AI generated content is one of the biggest step changes in the history of AI. The introduction of pretrained models with remarkable task adaptability has the potential to revolutionize how and where enterprises across industries use AI - and CSPs see this opportunity. In a recent Accenture survey of more than 4,700 C-level executives, 99% of communications executives agreed that software and services powered by AI foundation models will significantly augment innovation and creativity in their organizations in the next three to five years. 64% of CSPs expect these models to improve customer service, and 61% believe these models will accelerate new innovations.
Two areas where CSPs can immediately gain the most benefits are in customer service and augmenting sales and marketing activities.
Step 1: Focus on customer experience
One of the greatest opportunities for CSPs to leverage generative AI is around customer experience, care, and support. This is a costly area for every communications company, and it is ripe for transformation. For example, using a large language model to build an intelligent bot can effectively handle a significant amount of customer service communication. It can understand customer intent, come up with answers on its own, anticipate what the customer needs or wants, which can lead to happier customers and lower churn. Likewise, customer service employees at CSPs will find that generative AI actually helps them do their jobs better by giving them instantaneous access to data and information that previously may have been siloed or difficult to find.
Step 2: Revamp sales and marketing
Whether it’s a report that needs to be written, an email that needs to be composed or a social media campaign to promote a new service or action, generative AI can drive major efficiencies in marketing and sales activities. It can be used in sales meetings to help the sales professional close a deal, better understand how the customer is feeling and identify opportunities to sell new services and products. Generative AI can also offer a level of personalization that was simply not possible before. Leveraging data, it can gain an understanding of what a customer likes and dislikes and help sales professionals target them with personalized offers that look like they were customized just for them.
And it does not stop there!
Transforming customer experience, sales and marketing is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other areas where CSPs can leverage generative AI such network deployment & management, supply chain, testing, quality management, HR, procurement and even product design and development. While many of these activities will still require human involvement, they all can be drastically improved.
The key takeaway in all of this is that CSPs need to identify the right role for foundation models in their organizations. Once they narrow down where to use foundation models, they can decide how they will access these models and where they will sit in the foundation model ecosystem. And when that happens, they can then build the talent pipeline with the skills to take foundation models, adapt them to business needs, and integrate them into applications will become increasingly important.
To realize quick returns, CSPs can easily consume foundation models “off the shelf” through APIs. But to address their unique needs, they will need to customize and fine-tune these models using their own data. Then the models can support specific tasks, such as powering customer service bots or generating product designs - thus maximizing efficiency and driving competitive advantage.
While foundation models are still their infancy, their impact will grow to be overwhelming over the next decade. As the technology advances, so too will the opportunities. CSPs will be able to use generative AI’s foundation models to reinvent the way work is done. Every role in every enterprise has the potential to be reimagined, and as humans working with AI co-pilots becomes the norm, communications companies will be able to dramatically amplify what people can achieve.
It’s also important to note that generative AI will impact tasks, not occupations. Some tasks will be automated, some will be transformed through AI assistance, and some will be unaffected. In every scenario, the ability to generate content on demand is going to help the entire infrastructure and supply chain - from employees, partners, customers and ultimately end users.
