The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business is not hype . Rather than robots, the most common applications for business will be use of machine or deep learning to automatically analyze big data, resulting in improved business agility and mass personalization of services at scale.

SwissCognitiveThe main benefit for businesses will be their ability to improve employee and customer experience. Research from Harvard Business Review Analytics Services , found that a mere 15% of business leaders rated their customer service strategy and approach as very effective. In the age of the connected customer, the most effective method of closing the customer experience gap is for companies to invest in advanced predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) powered customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. According the research, forward-looking companies have invested in new technologies capable of consolidating and analyzing key customer data and have reorganized to be able to act on that customer insight in a more nimble way.

The biggest and most significant shift will be the use of advanced predictive analytics to drive data-driven customer experience decisions. The competitive battleground is now squarely based on superior customer experience, and only companies that invest in AI technologies can meet the ever-growing expectations of the hyper connected, and knowledge-sharing stakeholder – employees, partners and customers.

“Data has a clear role to play in developing a superior customer experience— and companies have access to more information on their customers than ever before. Indeed, they are seeing an exponential increase in customer-related data, driven largely by social media, mobile, and e-commerce. But these expanding troves of customer information alone are clearly not driving customer experience improvements—let alone innovation—in the vast majority of organizations.” — Harvard Business Review Analytic Services

To further understand the economic impact of AI, Salesforce commissioned a report from IDC on how AI will impact CRM – the fastest growing and soon-to-be largest category of enterprise software. Here are the key findings:

  • AI associated with CRM activities will boost global business revenue from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2021 by $1.1 trillion.
  • Net-new jobs associated with this revenue could reach more than 800,000 by 2021 in direct jobs, and 2 million if you add in indirect and induced jobs.

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