In the “pre-transformer era” of customer service, as virtual agent technologies began to find their footing, there was a recurring narrative that echoed throughout the industry. It was a pledge made to the dedicated human support agents who diligently fielded customer inquiries, resolved issues, and upheld the front lines of support. The message was clear: the rise of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and virtual assistant technologies wasn’t about replacing people; it was about enhancing them.

Customer support professionals were told not to fear the technology. Not only would it perform the mundane tasks that turned their work lives into drudgery, they were assured that these systems would be their allies, providing them with the means to navigate the increasingly complex world of customer interactions with newfound ease and speed. It was, in essence, the vision of offering employees new tools to help them do their jobs more effectively — a win-win for both employee and customer alike.

With the recent emergence of AI Copilot tools, fortified by Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI (GenAI), the promise of tools to help employees do their  jobs is finally beginning to materialize in an impressive way.

AI Copilots: Intelligent Assistants to Automate Work Tasks

AI Copilots, as the name suggests, act as intelligent co-workers for enterprise employees. LLMs serve as the foundation of AI Copilots’ capabilities. These models have undergone extensive training on a diverse range of texts, allowing them to understand context, syntax, and semantics.

Generative AI, a subset of AI technology, plays a pivotal role in AI Copilots’ ability to create content and responses. These capabilies enables co-pilots to automate the design and creation of tangible work products, such as summary reports, product descriptions, marketing material, and even wide-ranging customer support flows with corresponding dialog that culminate in completed transactions.

AI Copilots are akin to having a skilled assistant who understands exactly what is needed by listening to a brief description and who then creates the appropriate deliverable in seconds.

AI Copilots in the Contact Center

An obvious power of AI Copilots lies in their capacity to automate a myriad of tasks that were once labor-intensive for contact center employees. Here are just a few examples of the capabilities of the latest generation of AI-powered intelligent co-workers:

• Use Case Suggestions: AI Copilots accelerate Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) development by providing pre-defined use cases or generating customized ones based on descriptions, saving valuable time during the initial setup.
• Auto-Dialog Generation: These Copilots simplify dialog creation by automatically generating conversation designs based on use case descriptions, reducing the manual effort needed for dialog development.
• Training and Test Data Suggestions: AI Copilots assist in constructing efficient training data sets and offer suggestions for comprehensive scenario testing. This ensures IVAs accurately understand and respond to user inputs, enhancing customer service quality.
• Email Drafting: Some AI Copilots, like Microsoft’s Copilot, streamline email drafting by providing predefined prompts for various scenarios, enabling contact center employees to respond to customer inquiries more effectively.
• Conversation Previews: AI Copilots offer conversation preview capabilities, allowing contact center employees to review and edit responses before sharing them with customers, ensuring the highest quality interactions.

AI Copilots in Action

Salesforce Einstein Copilot:

As recently described in more detail, Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot is a trusted out-of-the-box conversational AI assistant integrated into every Salesforce application. It assists users within their workflow, enabling natural language queries and providing relevant answers grounded in secure proprietary data from Salesforce Data Cloud. This tool proactively offers options for additional actions, such as recommended action plans after sales calls or creating service knowledge articles. Einstein Copilot Studio also allows companies to build custom AI-powered apps for various business tasks, further enhancing productivity and job satisfaction.

Microsoft 365 Copilot:

Microsoft offers a Copilot for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, providing real-time assistance to resolve issues faster and automate time-consuming tasks. Copilot suggests responses, which contact center employees can review and edit before sharing with customers. It streamlines email drafting, offers predefined prompts for various scenarios, and simplifies conversation previews and auto-dialog generation. Microsoft’s Copilot is tightly integrated with the Dynamics 365 ecosystem, making it a valuable tool for organizations invested in Microsoft technologies.

Kore.ai Smart Copilot:

Kore.ai’s Smart Copilot accelerates conversational AI projects by offering use case suggestions, auto-dialog generation, training data suggestions, and test data suggestions. It simplifies IVA development by providing pre-defined use cases or generating customized ones. The platform’s advanced LLM and generative AI capabilities automate dialog creation and assist in building efficient training and test data sets. Kore.ai’s Copilot focuses on streamlining development and testing phases, making it an excellent choice for organizations looking to expedite IVA creation and enhance efficiency in these areas.

The Future Is Bright

The Age of AI Copilots for customer service is reshaping the contact center landscape. These intelligent companions, powered by LLMs and generative AI, are not just enhancing customer interactions but also revolutionizing the way contact center employees work. By automating tasks, providing valuable insights, and offering personalized responses, AI Copilots are empowering customer service teams to deliver superior experiences and navigate the complex world of customer support with ease. As organizations continue to embrace this technology, we can expect customer service to reach new heights of efficiency and effectiveness in the years to come.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Articles