Advancements in automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have revolutionized the business sector. Automation allows for concise, timely, and accurate service, which is in demand from a society accustomed to instant gratification. The predictive power of artificial intelligence allows businesses to improve upon their service. The end result is a fast, reliable, and effective customer service department, powered by AI and backed up by human agents.

An omnichannel approach to customer support requires a dedicated strategy—will you designate agents to focus on single channels or will they multitask? Are there channels that you want to guide customers towards? How do you properly staff agents on these channels throughout day, month, or year to keep up with customer requests?

The myths around AI have been nothing if not sticky. Fifty years after Hal 9000 made moviegoers very afraid, consumers continue to believe both that robots will replace humans — and also that AI is a thing of the future. The reality? Neither is true.

We live in an era where technology is advancing so quickly that it’s hard to keep up. Think back to ten or even twenty years ago when you needed to get to a business meeting. You had to print out your plane ticket, rental car information, and sometimes even directions on where you needed to go.

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been a hot topic within the customer support community recently and there are many good reasons for that. By using AI intelligently (no pun intended) support teams can be more efficient and effective, and create a better experience for customers, all without sacrificing quality.

Imagine the benefit your business could achieve if every customer interaction was intelligent? Artificially intelligent? Yes. The era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dawned upon us. From personal assistants on our smartphones to bring the keyword at boardroom meetings, AI is now ubiquitous.. But, what makes AI a beeline for personalized customer support?

Visionaries in the field of artificial intelligence in customer service see radical changes on the horizon, with a tipping point lying just a few years in the future. And if the prognostications of these experts—Zendesk partners Rick Nucci of Guru, Mike Murchison of Ada, and Mikhail Naumov of DigitalGenius—come to pass, AI will upend how customer service teams work in ways that will have far-reaching ramifications for companies across the globe.

Artificial intelligence used to only exist in science fiction films. That’s no longer the case. Today, brands are using it to improve efficiency and productivity in all areas of business. In fact, 55% of established companies have either started making investments in artificial intelligence or are planning to do so by 2020. These investments can come in many forms, but one of the most effective is in using artificial intelligence to power chatbots.

Thrun, who founded the famous Google car project and is the chairman of Udacity, is bang on. If you really think about it, all of AI is basically a march towards building machines which can behave, process, and think like humans (but of course, not replace them).

Data shows that, for global businesses, providing support in multiple languages is well worth the effort. Nearly three quarters of people search online in their native language, which means that if you’re only communicating in English, for example, you’re probably losing customers and adding layers of inefficiencies for your agents.