We’re in an experience economy. Consumers expect seamless, personalised experiences on their preferred channels — no matter when they engage with your company. And they expect the context of those interactions to follow them from channel to channel — without having to repeat themselves. In fact, 97% of consumers surveyed in “The State of Customer Experience” report say this is an important factor when engaging with a company.

Not meeting these experience expectations can cost companies; consumers will take their business elsewhere. Our survey found that 53% of consumers will switch from a favourite brand after two to five poor interactions, and 30% have stopped doing business with a company during the past year because of a bad customer service experience.

To deliver the highly personalised and seamless interactions customers demand, organisations are increasingly looking to artificial intelligence (AI). Customer experience (CX) leaders recognise the incredible impact AI tools can have on customer and employee experiences. In the 2024 Genesys report “Customer experience in the age of AI,” 70% of the 1,000 CX leaders surveyed report that AI is a business imperative; 27% say it’s already critical in their CX operations and 43% expect it to be critical within the next two to three years.

Modern technologies like advanced virtual agents, for example, can help to elevate customer satisfaction, personalise engagements and drive efficiency. Virtual supervisors and supervisor copilots use AI and automation to augment employee performance to improve experiences, operational efficiency and business impact.

The benefits of these tools are transformative. And AI in customer experience shouldn’t just be “bolted onto” your system. The true value can only be realised when modern AI tools are built into your CX platform. When AI is built into a customer experience platform — instead of bolted on — businesses can innovate faster, more securely and without complex integrations. Having AI at the heart of a CX platform empowers business with advanced data orchestration through journeys, work automation, routing and engagement.

Let’s look at the difference between point solutions, where AI is “bolted onto” your system, versus the advantages of a customer experience platform that’s built on the power of AI.

Siloed Experiences and Other Risks with Point Solutions

Fragmented experiences. Long wait times. Frustrated agents. Supervisors mired with manual processes and little insight into employee behaviour and performance. These are just a few of the outcomes you can encounter when using a third-party AI tool that isn’t natively integrated with your CX platform.
Unlike with integrated systems, point solutions lack the connective tissue to gain actionable insights from your data, including how and why your customers have contacted you in the past. This means that agents often have to manually toggle through various screens and sources of knowledge to assist customers. They lack the context of previous conversations and that leaves customers — and employees — frustrated.

In fact, 97% of consumers surveyed for “The State of Customer Experience” report and 86% of CX leaders surveyed say that the need for omnichannel experiences is key for seamless engagements. Yet only 16% of CX leaders surveyed say they offer multiple channels for customer interactions with completely integrated technology and seamlessly connected data.

Integration overhead is also a major concern. Third-party AI tools require custom development and ongoing maintenance. This can increase the time to deploy AI capabilities, as well as require specialised IT resources to manage and troubleshoot issues.

Data security and privacy are concerns for all companies — and customers — in the age of AI. With point solutions, there are data security and privacy risks associated with exporting sensitive customer interaction data to external clouds. With increasing regulatory scrutiny around customer data (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA), moving transcripts or voice data out of the secure Genesys environment can present compliance challenges.

The Strategic Advantage of an AI-Powered Experience Orchestration Platform

The native AI tools within the Genesys Cloud™ platform help to deliver experiences that are built on seamless integration, real-time performance and centralised data access. Let’s look at how these capabilities can also work together to help improve experiences for your customers and your workforce.
Genesys Cloud Predictive Engagement uses built-in AI models to analyse historical and real-time data across customer interactions and agent performance. Based on customer behaviour on a website and their historical data, it can trigger an automated conversation with a virtual agent to help complete the customer journey or goal.

Genesys Cloud Virtual Agent automates customer dialogues and provides real-time information surfacing based on customer intent and their website behaviour. This can help to reduce escalations to agents and alleviate the overhead of repetitive tasks.

It also offers next-best-action suggestions and after-call summaries — delivered directly in the agent’s user interface. This empowers them to respond faster and more accurately and, ultimately, can help to improve customer and employee satisfaction.

If the virtual agent isn’t able to resolve an issue, Genesys Cloud Predictive Routing takes over to help identify the best agent to quickly resolve a customer issue, which can lead to reduced handle times.

Genesys Cloud Agent Copilot augments agent performance by automating tasks that were traditionally manual, such as retrieving knowledge, generating responses, providing real-time recommendations and completing wrap-up work.

Additionally, AI-powered workforce engagement management tools, such as speech-and-text analytics and quality management, help supervisors automate employee scheduling processes and gain insights into employee performance in real time. By leveraging these built-in AI tools, businesses can optimise resource allocation, enhance operational efficiency and meet evolving workforce demands.

Native AI for Innovation Beyond the Contact Centre

Genesys Cloud AI enables businesses to deliver personalised and empathetic customer and employee experiences. By integrating built-in AI capabilities across Genesys Cloud functions instead of simply bolting them onto your platform, businesses can better personalise self-service, uncover deeper customer insights, and empower their employees while enhancing operational efficiency and performance.
With the built-in AI capabilities of Genesys Cloud, businesses can not only meet their current needs but also continually evolve to keep up with changing customer expectations and business landscapes. Watch these three short videos in our “Level Up AI” series to learn how AI integration can drive immediate results.