Let’s restate Mike’s words as a ‘Moment of Truth interaction’ – something we’ve all faced as we’ve navigated the trials and tribulations of travel. In these moments of truth, we want access to the help we need to solve a problem to return to enjoying the moment.
Whether it’s picking the right destination, filling an itinerary, booking the trip, arriving at the airport, navigating the baggage Bermuda triangle, getting safely to our destination, enjoying the itinerary, getting safely home again (with our baggage), or sharing the stories and pictures with our communities, every moment matters.
Human-in-the-loop AI, for me at least, speaks to a narrative of productivity. How can we get AI to do everything in its most generic form so that a human is needed only by exception? It’s 99% AI and 1% human. It is common in the business process outsourcing narrative where transactional work is committed at $/hr, and the race to productivity is to drive out human interaction, something we thought RPA would achieve in its early hype cycle back in 2016.
But in Travel, Tourism, and Hospitality, we’re not simply trying to process a single, rule-based transaction quickly; we’re trying to help our customers fulfill a dream, maybe tick the trip of a lifetime off the bucket list, the very essence of being human.
And for now, at least, the research supports it; indeed, we see AI being unpicked from some processes as suppliers and customers navigate this changing landscape. In these moments of truth, customers want to be seen and heard, acknowledged and helped – they need your undivided attention.
So, with that in mind, we should think about AI in the loop as the opposite of Human in the loop.
Here, the Human is Assisted, Augmented, and even Amplified. Of course, we’re still using technologies to automate the rule-based, transactional tasks, and we’re still using the omnichannel experience to guide customers to help themselves where the information and opportunity allow. Still, in doing so, we’re freeing up the time for Humans to be more human.
The ambition for generating customer success while driving up agent tenure and advocacy is to turn Agents into Experts with the help of AI in the Loop. So, let’s look at the agent evolution journey:
- The enabled Agent. Here, the ‘enabling’ is simply that the Agent has received meaningful training, can work with good access to applications, can reference to structure knowledge and documentation, and is therefore ‘enabled with good technologies’ to perform the tasks assigned. But think of this as the new minimum level of agent experience – removing agent stress and reducing agent attrition. It is a critical step to creating the experienced agent force you need for the future.
- The assisted Agent. The assistance comes from readily available technologies such as orchestration, automation with embedded, proven AI-think machine vision, and basic analytics. The assisted Agent can call on the automation of simple tasks, automatically acquire external data to support a case and perform tasks that cross multiple applications seamlessly from the agent interface. We might see sentiment analytics in action, working alongside the Agent to assist in making more informed responses alongside metrics and indicators for meaningful insight into performance. We are also looking at how historical data combined with machine learning might predict the next best action or how AI can interpret complex ticketing data to help suggest what the customer can do during cancellation or delay.
- The augmented Agent. Here, we are augmenting the Agent with the latest technologies. We can apply the idea of omnichannel with omni-language, making the interaction across channels seamless and presenting the interaction in local language and accent. The Agent is still in control but can call on AI to generate the best response, where the AI technology also prescribes the appropriate next action. The augmented Agent can be ‘called in’ to an autonomous interaction when the technology has reached a safe threshold. It is a somewhat symbiotic relationship between humans and technology, delivering with the intent of achieving customer success.
So, what else is there beyond this?
The Expert Agent. It is the Agent trained using AI, which accelerates their skills acquisition through gamification and immersion, delivering better outcomes through reinforcement learning. And it is the meaningful acceleration of the ‘speed to competence’ conundrum that faces so many CX managers. The Human remains at the center of every Customer Experience interaction during critical moments, empowered by AI handling routine tasks seamlessly and without disruptions as it evolves. Immersive AI, autonomous agents, enables humans to be more human.
As Agentics roars over the horizon as the latest AI evolution replaces human thinking and decision-making, I offer hope for future agents. AI can amplify what it means to be human and increase the time you have to solve truly complex issues in those moments of truth.
So here’s what I think. Tomorrow’s Human Agent will be amplified by AI, not silenced by it. Customers will have all the channels necessary to get the required outcome in a timely fashion and feel good about it. It will drive loyalty and advocacy, fuelling real value creation for suppliers as they navigate the consumer of tomorrow.
