Driving Efficiency with AIDriving Efficiency with AI

Enterprises want AI to make their employees more productive, and there are myriad ways that this can happen: Personal assistants or “copilots” can summarize meetings so people can skip meetings when necessary or more easily derive action items; they can also help employees compose emails, and find resources and answers quickly (with the caveat that the information these copilots are accessing has to be accurate). CX examples abound, from now-routine applications like call summarization to making knowledge bases more accessible and improving the quality of chatbots.

One of the sessions I’m most excited about at Enterprise Connect in less than two weeks (you can still register!) is a case study to be presented by Michael Altieri of Medtronic, the medical device manufacturer. I won’t steal his thunder, but Altieri offers a detailed description of Medtronic’s multi-year project to continue improving its AI capabilities, and he shows the metrics they used to measure their success.

Interestingly, he concludes that, “AI and ML are great tools to leverage but will not solve all the challenges you face. If used correctly they will enhance your performance as they will make you way more efficient.” In the current world of AI hype, you might gravitate toward the “will not solve all the challenges you face,” portion of that conclusion. But the second sentence is really the key: Using this stuff correctly “will make you way more efficient.” For any contact center, that’s a win.

When it comes to the knowledge worker tools—the assistants, companions, copilots, etc.—you may not necessarily have as clear a way to determine how efficient they’re making your end users, and how that efficiency translates into ROI for your enterprise. For large enterprises, that will probably be a crucial determination, at least for products like Microsoft Copilot that carry a $30 per user per month charge. Figuring out who should get this capability and will use it to be more efficient—will likely be a challenge for some enterprises.

On No Jitter, Kevin Kieller of EnableUC and BC Strategies has an in-depth look at Microsoft Copilot, offering details for Microsoft shops looking at deploying this AI assistant; it’s a preview of a session Kieller will deliver on Copilot at Enterprise Connect. Kieller is also teaming with Brent Kelly of Omdia to take a deep dive on the LLMs and AI-powered features behind AI assistants from several of the leading collaboration platform vendors. These kinds of detailed analyses may help you determine how best to deploy personal assistants.

The Enterprise Connect program is replete with AI content, from our keynote sessions to the Conference and free education. AI may make you more efficient, but one way to efficiently learn a lot about AI quickly—from the experts and your peers—is to attend Enterprise Connect in Orlando March 25 – 28. I hope to see you there!