Can AI turn cost-centres to profit centres? : Vinay Bhartia

Authored by Vinay Bhartia, Head South Asia, MessageBird

Can AI turn cost-centres to profit centres?
At the recent round-table at IDC CIO Summit, there were interesting thoughts and questions around AI that were thrown up.
The rise of AI has raised a number of questions, especially when it comes to its use in an enterprise setting. Do we use the AI in an auto-pilot mode or in a co-pilot mode is one of the key questions that every CIO grapples with. At the same time, there’s the awareness (and danger) that customer data cannot be put up in a public AI, even accidentally.

A leading coffee chain does certain tasks that are run in auto pilot mode—like the customer promotions at a store to suggest when a customer gives an order.
A marketplace for insurance looks at auto-pilot mode for converting speech to text on a real-time basis and thereby enabling the right prompts for its customer service agents.
At a leading jobs portal, there’s the realisation that unless the right governance is in place, “your proprietary code can go in public, quickly”. The biggest challenge is in knowing the maturity of the person who is interacting with the AI.
But herein lies the opportunity. The same opportunity when computers came in, and we were afraid that jobs would be lost. The opportunity to convert traditional cost centres or agents into profit centres. One who can “prompt” customers, cross-sell, up-sell, through all routes possible. Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, Website chat, Phone, IVR.

With the ability to understand context, sentiment, the newer AI models can enable front line workforce & create a new set of jobs on how to interact with customers, how to respond to queries, how to generate profits—there’s a slew of possibilities that open up for the frontline workers.

What’s your thoughts on this? Will AI be able to convert cost centres to profit centres and generate more jobs? Will AI be able to assist to support a seamless customer experience.