AI went from risk to business imperative
Yelp’s new AI receptionist
AI went from risk to business imperative
Bank of America and AI
Yelp’s new AI receptionist
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AI went from risk to business imperative
Leaders are no longer debating whether generative AI will matter; they are racing to determine how to operationalize it. Usage patterns show the shift. In 2023, only 37% of senior leaders used generative AI weekly. Now, 82% do, and 46% report daily use, according to the report. Because generative AI is a general-purpose technology, Puntoni and his colleagues expect usage to reach near-universal levels. “Half of senior leaders in a large sample of corporate America are saying that they’re using a tool every day; that is really quite incredible,” he said.
Still, progress varies by company size. Larger enterprises are seeing slower results as they manage complex integrations, while midsized and smaller firms report quicker progress. Tech, banking, and professional services firms are among the sectors making strides. Puntoni noted that generative AI adoption is progressing at an eye-opening pace. “I don’t think there’s any company that now says, ‘Generative AI isn’t for us,’” he said.
The third annual WHAIR study, conducted with GBK Collective, underscores this acceleration, Puntoni told me. A survey of 800 senior leaders in finance, IT, HR, and other functions at U.S. companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue found that 88% expect to increase generative AI investment in the next year, and 62% expect budgets to rise by more than 10% within two to five years....
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Bank of America and AI
Bank of America’s 8-year-old AI-based virtual assistant, Erica, has handled 3 billion customer interactions. “We’ve already seen the equivalent of 11,000 people’s work being done every day through Erica,” Gopalkrishnan said. “Every second of handle time in a call center is worth X dollars,” Gopalkrishan said. “So if I can automate prediction of why a customer is calling, I can then look at speech to text to figure out what the client call need is, and give the associate an agent to serve them within 30 seconds or one minute. That’s 30 seconds of money saved every single call.” In the past, if a customer saw a charge go through three times or wanted to order a checkbook, they would call the call center. “Those calls no longer have to be answered by people, because Erica takes care of them,” Gopalkrishnan said.
AI is making relationship bankers more productive, for instance. “Think about how much time and effort people take to prepare for client meetings,” Gopalkrishnan said. “How many clients can a given relationship banker cover if you’re able to actually automate that process using AI and traditional analytics and traditional automation? You now can have a banker cover 50 clients instead of 15, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing in the real world.”
These bankers use AI-based client meeting preparation tools that let bankers say, “I’m going to meet client X tomorrow. Can you prepare for me everything that the client cares about?” Gopalkrishnan said. “It can bring together structured data, unstructured data, everything I’ve talked to the client about from a customer relationship management perspective, and that’s at my fingertip with insights.”
Overall, AI is taking “toil out of the system,” he said. “In three years, hopefully we will have significantly streamlined a lot of the toil in the system and be doing more exciting work going forward.”....
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Yelp’s new AI receptionist
The company said the AI is ideal for understaffed businesses and small restaurants, boasting the ability to take calls at all times, handle reservations and answer customer questions. “Unlike alternative call bots, these solutions combine AI with Yelp’s high-quality data and proprietary voice system, for a smarter, faster, and more human-like AI voice tailored to each individual business.” Yelp said the AI comes pre-trained using Yelp business data and is fully customizable to reflect the business using it, allowing for the AI agent’s name, voice and personal greetings to be customized. The questions the AI asks customers and provided information like special offers can also be tweaked. Additionally, the AI can send links to take credit card deposits and more.
“For many businesses, reliable, around‑the‑clock call handling is essential to capture every lead and best serve your customers. But when you’re understaffed, on a job site, or simply busy, even one missed call can mean significant lost revenue,” said Yelp chief product officer Craig Saldanha.
Yelp said businesses that use the service will be given a dedicated phone number for it, with the option of call forwarding available. Currently in Beta, Yelp’s AI offerings have been praised by business owners. Yelp Receptionist can manage calls for any “eligible local businesses.” Subscriptions to this AI-powered service will begin rolling out this week….