With the launch of ChatGPT’s natural language understanding and generation model, Artificial Intelligence appeared to evolve rapidly overnight, with some industry analysts claiming this turning point ‘is as disruptive to humanity as the launch of the World Wide Web and search browsers in the early 90’s.’

Using transformer-based models for language tasks, AI engineers can develop industry-specific chat bots, IVRs, and customer service bots in a matter of hours, which previously took months, if not years.  Within days of the ChatGPT’s launch, the evolution of writing, designing, producing, and responding was forever altered, eliminating time and human-error constraints.

For instance, graphic artists can design their own images by simply typing in a few keywords; such as, “green and silver circular award badge icon.”  Within seconds, hundreds of image variations for ‘green and silver circular award icons’ will populate.  Another popular use case includes using the chatbot to write essays and blogs.  Content is never repeated, so no matter how often the same question is asked, a different response will be received.

It appears that every industry can benefit from AI due to understanding natural language and auto-generation of well-written and spoken responses.  You may be wondering how you can start using AI technology in your business and the answer starts with your communications system.

Phone system developers are starting to implement AI technology for basic troubleshooting support and call distribution. For instance, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems were very expensive and only found at the enterprise-level, are now appearing on road maps for the SMB phone system market.  After-hours AI support is also being used to vet a caller’s situation and offer tier1 troubleshooting tips prior to alerting an on-call technician.

In the future, AI bots will learn to detect a caller’s tone of voice, such as an angry or frustrated caller, and attempt to deescalate the caller or transfer directly to management to continue the conversation.  As AI becomes more humanoid, and the natural language tasks such as ChatGPT continue to evolve, callers will not be able to distinguish a human voice from an AI bot.  AI bots will assumingly progress to providing advanced levels of troubleshooting such as tier 2 or 3 support as they ‘learn’ more about the product or service.

It is important to consider the impact of AI on employees and ensure that it is not used to replace human workers, but rather to augment their abilities. It is recommended to implement an AI Employee Usage policy to outline the purpose and scope of AI implementation, as well as the ethical considerations surrounding its usage.  It’s also important to outline AI uses within your company and provide transparency to employees on how AI will be used. 

ACC Telecom, a B2B telecommunications company since 1979, has seen it’s fair share of industry disruptions from Loop Start to VoIP and everything in between. AI will certainly transform the way we communication and interact.  Contact ACC Telecom for more information on AI business communication system technology.