AI Alone Can’t Do It All

A significant amount of ink—albeit digital rather than the actual printing fluid—has been used in this issue to tout the benefits of artificial intelligence across a wide variety of business use cases, from marketing personalization and self-service customer support to hiring and sales coaching. Some people love AI; others hate it and long for the bygone days when actual humans answered the phone and helped customers achieve whatever it was they wanted to do.

I fall somewhere in the middle, but I came to realize recently just how much I lean toward the latter when it comes to customer service and technical support issues.

In my ongoing crusade to rid myself of outdated technology and adopt some of the latest and greatest gadgetry, I finally decided to retire my old HP desktop computer (It can only run on Windows 10, and Microsoft isn’t going to be supporting that operating system anymore after this month). Before discarding the clunky metal box that was this 10-year-old computer—well, actually sending it off to a local electronics recycling organization—I, of course, wanted to clear all my personal information, user accounts, and data files from the hard drive. I was getting error messages with all the standard methods.

Like everyone else, I went to Google for help. Google’s AI referred me to Microsoft’s website, where yet more AI surfaced a wide selection of how-to lists, user forums, FAQ posts, and message boards. None of these provided what I wanted in the context that I needed. That brought me to Microsoft’s “Contact Us” tab, which opened a chat window where I could interact with an AI chatbot that walked me through the same steps that had failed already. There was no clear way to reach a human.

This brought me to HP, where I suffered the same AI-guided fate for about a half hour. When I did finally get close to getting an actual human on the line, the chatbot told me it would need to collect $16.99 before passing me on to the live tech support operator. That money, I was told, would buy me a service contract for one-year, something I certainly didn’t need for a computer that I was looking to trash. I ended the interaction, super-frustrated by now, and took matters into my own hands, going with screwdriver in hand into the world of silicon chips and circuit boards to destroy anything that looked like it might be storing my personal information.

This experience highlights the one theme that runs throughout each of the AI-related stories in this issue: AI is great for some things, but humans still need to be kept in the loop. AI, as powerful as it is, still isn’t ready to entirely replace actual flesh-and-blood individuals. AI is still very much in its infancy, and so companies shouldn’t rely on it alone to solve all their customer issues.

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It was with tremendous sadness that we learned of the passing of Barton Goldenberg on Aug. 24 at the age of 69. Goldenberg founded ISM in 1985 and for 40 years helped companies leverage technology to transform customer engagement, boost sales, and reduce costs. A prolific writer and lecturer and a giant in the CRM field, he was a regular contributor to CRM magazine and served on its editorial advisory board. He was also a frequent speaker at CRM magazine’s annual conferences. His extensive work in CRM led to his selection as one of the first three inductees in the CRM Hall of Fame in 2003, alongside Siebel Systems CEO and founder Tom Siebel and Pat Sullivan, creator of ACT! and SalesLogix. He also authored three best-selling business books. An avid technophile, he was second to none as an advocate for digital transformation and the latest and most disruptive sales, marketing, and customer service innovations, including social media, augmented and virtual reality, and the metaverse. His insight, inspiring vision, and technological prowess will certainly be missed, as will his kind and generous spirit.

Leonard Klie is the editor of CRM magazine. He can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.

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