Use cases

Front office transformation has undergone the initial wave of customer relationship management (CRM) implementation and is now embracing AI-enabled solutions to tide over a post-pandemic crisis where both demand and supply have been volatile.

Two themes are emerging out of the use cases where AI is being used.

1. Front office transformation: Out of the top five use cases, four are related to front office activities such as customer service, personalisation, sales force productivity and user experience.

Customer service has been affected adversely by the COVID-19 crisis, leading to an increased interest in automation to meet the needs of customers. Chatbots (46%) have augmented employees in support functions to keep up with the demands of customers during the crisis.

2. Automation: Organisations (44%) are using AI to automate routine decision making and delegate it to algorithms for both front and back office processes.

It is important to highlight that in developing economies like India, AI-driven intelligent automation needs to be focused more on augmenting workforce capabilities and improving the market demand. Economic gains achieved through a focus on cost reduction using automation will be offset by the social cost of workforce displacement and such gains might be short-lived and unsustainable.