They didn’t get a straight definition of what an AI agent is during Brett Taylor’s Mobile World Congress Fireside Chat in Barcelona on Tuesday. Sierra founder and Openai’s board chair prefers the questions of CNN moderator Anna Stewart, who asks that “agent AI” is “something different from Genai Chatbot.”
Given his new startup will build a customer service AI agent, we would expect Taylor to become evangelical about the possibilities of technology. And he wasn’t disappointed. “I discovered the internet when I was a teenager, so I’m more excited about the massive language model and this current wave of technology than I might remember,” he told the conference’s delegation.
Generated AI Fuel Customer Service The previous iteration of AI Agents and AI chatbot step changes are much higher level features, such as AI that can be “in a multilingual, instantaneous” in AI.
“I think we’re in an age where these AI solutions are actually better than alternatives,” he said.
“And what’s noteworthy about these agents is that people actually really like them.”
Beyond the customer experience
These competent AI service bots help businesses reduce customer service costs. This suggested that it would help Taylor raise the bar overall. “I think it’s just improving the consumer experience for so many brands,” he said.
But he acknowledged that bots are too capable of leading to fresh challenges, noting examples of customer support AI agents having non-existent “hastisation” reimbursement policies in response to customer bereavement.
So, he said that brands developing the right “guardrails” for AI agents are an important part of implementing tools safely. However, he was bullish that this challenge would shrink as customer service agents became increasingly tuned to each brand’s use cases and policies.
“In general, my philosophy is, don’t wait for technology to be perfect. In fact, it may not be perfect, but you can narrow down the domain you are working on, take these refractory issues and make them resolveable,” he said.
“Instead of trying to solve all the AI problems in the world, we narrow it down to the domain and say, “Hey, I can put some practical guardrails around this AI and solve the problem right now.” And I think that’s an opportunity for all the businesses at this conference,” he said. In addition to his own customer service-focused AI agent companies, he checked AI code assistant cursors and Openai-backed Legal Tech Harvey as examples of AI specialization, which successfully applies AI agents to defined domains.
Taylor was, of course, a maximalist, also taking the take on what an AI agent will be important to the brand in the future. “I think most businesses, AI agents are actually just as important as websites and mobile apps in terms of the percentage of customer interaction,” he said. “In fact, if you’re fast forwarding five or ten years, then if their AI agents are their main digital experience, then I wouldn’t be surprised to most brands here. But I really think that’s where the world is moving forward.”
He suggested that how people interact with AI agents is likely to shift. The user interface for interacting with these bots is intended to disappear more in the background as technicians are looking for an even easier way to utilize the technological utilities.
“I think – I think – people who are constantly staring at their screens start to melt as a social habit. And with the advent of conversational AI, when software really understands how we speak, that computer is kind of melting, and the devices melting, which I think is very exciting,” he said. As a parent, he said he hopes his children “don’t have to stare at the screen for the rest of their lives to get involved in technology.”
Responsibility for reskills
What about the confusion that allows a customer service AI agent to get a job?
Taylor said it was a valid concern, but once again expressed optimism that change is good for humanity. However, he added, “technology manufacturers have a responsibility to have that conversation, not just providing technology.”
A major risk from shifting AI fuel employment is that the reskills required cannot accommodate the speed of change, he said. “When disruption occurs faster than society can reskill, it’s a destructive force. I think essentially we need public private partnerships.”
The moderator also asked Openai Board Chair about AI Giant’s plans to switch from a nonprofit to a for-profit venture.
Taylor chose to highlight the cost of developing AI technology, which he said was “very high” when he said the opening to develop artificial general information that benefits humanity has yet to resolve what the future structure is.
“Whatever we do, we want to amplify that mission, and that’s what we have,” he said. “The mission remains the same, and in fact, the structure… hopes to strengthen that mission. That’s how we think it is.”
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