AI-first world Archives — Carrington Malin

    March 9, 2025
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    The growing impact of GenAI Internet search on your brand

    Is your content ready for GenAI?

    The new generation of AI chatbots still only account for a small percentage of Internet traffic, but the writing is on the wall: GenAI will not only change search traffic forever, it will change consumer behaviour forever too.

    Anyone even vaguely involved in marketing and communications will have noticed how much Generative AI is already affecting content. GenAI generated images and videos are flooding social media, deepfakes are commonplace, there’s a growing volume of AI-generated blog posts, social media posts and comments. Meanwhile, GenAI content is also becoming common in business communications, like messages, emails, reports and presentations. Less visible is the impact that AI-First channels are having on content discovery and Internet search.

    US-based Activate Consulting predicts that the number of users starting their Internet searches using a GenAI platform will more than double in the next four years. The company’s researchindicates that 15 million U.S. adults started their search queries via GenAI in 2023 and forecasts that 36 million will do so by 2028.

    In my view that’s a conservative estimate. The United States had an estimated 320 million Internet users in 2023, of which the majority use Internet search daily (so, betwen 160 and 288 million users, depending which research you believe). Without doubt, we can categorise those that have used GenAI chatbots for Internet search during the past two years as early adopters — meaning the numbers of people using GenAI for search will only increase. Meanwhile, the dynamics of GenAI usage are changing very fast indeed.

    The dynamics of GenAI use

    In early 2023, if you wanted to use GenAI for Internet search, then you really had to use Perplexity, since OpenAI‘s ChatGPT had no real-time access to the Internet. As more LLM-powered chatbots were hooked up to Internet search, users could choose which chatbot they search with. Last year, Bing introduced a chatbot icon on its search homepage, making it more intuitive for users to switch to GenAI for search.

    GenAI is now quickly being built into an increasingly wide variety of software applications and platforms. Most of these integrations still require you to purposefully open the chatbot app in order to enter a query, but there are already plenty of apps making this integration tighter, so that you can submit queries from within the main application you are using. LLMs and LMMs (large multimodal models) are also getting smarter in the way they access the Internet, present information and provide reasoned suggestions or recommendations. Increasingly, such chatbots won’t even need you to submit a query in order for them to search the Internet and recommend content to you.

    Internet search via GenAI is going to be driven by not only active search users, but also passive search and even Internet searches driven by proactive recommendations from the chatbots themselves.

    In summary, Internet search via GenAI is going to be driven by not only active search users, but also passive search (where GenAI is more involved in recommending an Internet search) and even Internet searches driven by proactive recommendations from the chatbots themselves. Very soon, searching with GenAI will simply become the easiest, most contextual and timely way to search the Internet. I believe usage is sure to grow sharply as a result.

    This move to AI-Firstsearch habits is going to have a huge impact on how content is discovered and, for this reason, on what we today call search engine optimisation (SEO).

    Although in my view, whilst we will see massive adoption of GenAI tools for Internet search, traditional search portals will be with us for the foreseeable future. Remember: the arrival of Twitter (now X.com), Facebook and LinkedIn changed discovery habits forever — in particular for news media content, but they didn’t kill off our search engines.

    Does SEO impact GenAI search?

    How does the new paradigm of GenAI search impact your online content? The answer is that it does so quite directly, since OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot use Bing’s search engine to find content on the Internet, while Google Gemini obviously uses Google search. Your content’s performance in GenAI channels is therefore currently directly related to your content’s performance in traditional search engines.

    But that’s not the whole story. GenAI search startup Perplexity has developed its own search index, which although smaller than Google’s, it says is more efficient. In time there will be others, possibly fragmenting the world of Internet search as we saw happen in the early days of the World Wide Web. This will create challenges for SEO professionals and will require new research into such new search indexes that have been built to serve GenAI.

    As for now, we’re now beginning to see significant Internet search traffic generated by GenAi assistants. Take Middle East AI News, for example. Focused on providing news and insight about AI and its impact on the Middle East, middleeastainews.comis already growing fast in numbers of subscribers and page views. I expect page views during the first quarter of 2025 to grow by at least 46%, compared with the last quarter of 2024.

    middleeastainews.com PageViews referred by GenAI tools (actual + forecast)

    However, the forecast for the rate of growth in page views referred by GenAI assistants to middleeastainews.com completely outshines the sites overall growth rate. Website page views originating from GenAI will grow by at least 231% during Q1, compared with the previous quarter — and this is significantly faster than the 74% quarterly growth in GenAI referrals registered for the website in Q1 2024.

    Although SEO is certainly going to become more automated and enhanced by AI, it is only going to become more important in our new GenAI era.

    Although SEO is certainly going to become more automated and enhanced by AI, it is only going to become more important in our new GenAI era.

    The good news is that brands that have already been optimising their content with voice search in mind (something that SEO experts began recommending 12-15 years ago) are bound to see positive results from that content in GenAI-generated search results.

    GenAI takes us another step away from key phrase and Boolean searches, and one more step closer to intelligent natural language search, linked to intent. Which is a nice segue into another critical aspect of this topic: GenAI will not simply change the consumer search experience, it will change consumer intent.

    GenAI’s impact on search reaches far beyond user experience

    Not only will we see the volumes of search traffic from GenAI increase, but GenAI will also influence such things as user sentiment and user intent.

    We can split up user intent into many types, but for business planning purposes we can consider the following: informational intent (seeking knowledge), navigational intent (seeking specific companies or websites), transactional intent (including intent to purchase), and comparison shopping (research prior to purchase).

    Toray, when you search for comparable products, for example, you may well end up on a comparison site such as Capterra, G2 or Similarweb. Or you may simply visit a number of weblinks for different products. Using traditional search engines, your results are provided in a list ranked by the search engine’s algorithm with relatively little recommendations or suggestions.

    The original user intent may have been comparison shopping, but within a few seconds — enabled by GenAI — this could easily change to a transactional intent!

    Ask a query such as “What are the best new notebooks available for gaming below $1,500 and why?”and you’ll already get a much shorter list of notebook models than via a search engine portal. Your GenAI assistant will have selected product and product review content and may have re-written it to suit your purpose.

    Although GenAI assistants generally don’t make specific recommendations for such queries unprompted, a follow-up question such as “Of these results, which one do you favour?”can result in a firm recommendation from GenAI.

    In fact, it’s the whole conversational nature of GenAI assistants that will change what links users click on and why. AI assistants are becoming more and more proactive in helping users find solutions, compare options and make decisions. So, a user’s click-through to a website may now have a different intent compared to one originating from a traditional search engine. The original user intent may have been comparison shopping, but within a few seconds — enabled by GenAI — this could easily change to a transactional intent!

    Therefore, the coming evolution in Internet search using GenAI does not only impact search volumes and discovery — deciding who and how many people visit your website, store or product page, but it will also change search behaviours and importantly the user’s intent behind a click, and in many ways. This arguably changes SEO’s goal from ensuring top-ranking content in search results, to trying to secure top-ranking recommendations from GenAI assistants. This is bound to make new demands on both onsite and offsite SEO strategies.

    Whether intended or not (and whether we like it or not), GenAI will influence audience sentiment.

    GenAI search impact on brand reputation

    Now let’s examine the broader potential impact of GenAI suggestions and recommendations: on brand reputation. We’re now entering a new era where the opinion of a GenAI assistant — as perceived by the user — will influence how the user feels about news, politics, science, celebrities and, of course, brands. Whether intended or not (and whether we like it or not), GenAI will influence audience sentiment and ultimately, brand preferences.

    Influencing audience sentiment about your brand could result from a simple inclusion, or omission of a brand, in results over time, as we are already used to seeing in search engine results.

    The language that GenAI uses to communicate about your brand may also influence sentiment (for example by frequently including your brand in a brand category that it does not belong in). Then we have the potential for GenAI to both amplify — and add authority to — positive or negative sentiment about your brand, that AI has found on the World Wide Web.

    GenAI isn’t merely altering how content is discovered, it is fundamentally rewiring the entire digital ecosystem that connects brands to consumers. And this will happen fast. AI-First Internet access will grow much faster than the spread of the World Wide Web, and faster than the growth of Mobile-First access. Now is the time to review your online content, together with onsite and offsite SEO strategies (and, in fact, digital communications in general).

    This article first appeared in my March 2025 AI First newsletter.

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    February 15, 2025
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    AI First? Shouldn’t it be Human First AI?

    AI First is a developing consumer behaviour, rather than an approach to automation.

    It wouldn’t be technology, if it wasn’t accompanied by a lot of buzzwords!  The industry has really excelled itself recently, popularising such technical terms as large language models (or LLMs), Generative AI, prompt engineering, and now AI agents! Whilst it’s true that AI First may be another buzzword, it does have its roots in the past 30 years of digital consumer behaviour, but why am I talking about AI First not Human First? What is AI First and why do you need it? And isn’t Human AI better?

    The evolution of AI First

    The key thing to understand about the term AI First, is that it’s a developing consumer behaviour, rather than an approach to automation. Over the past three decades consumers have developed a preference for dealing with brands via digital channels. That evolution continues today as consumers being to embrace AI.

    In the 2000s, consumers flocked to the Internet (eventually!) eager to begin their customer journey with a brand via the World Wide Web: we called that Internet First. In the late 2000s, the rise of the smart phone and affordable broadband prompted Mobile First behaviours. Today, we are witnessing the birth of AI First consumer behaviours: when consumers choose AI as their digital channel to engage with news, information, education, brands and commerce.

    AI First wouldn’t be arriving at the station without established Internet and mobile behaviours.

    The arrival of AI First doesn’t just supersede the previous waves of digital consumer behavior: it meshes with them. Just as Mobile First arrived standing on the shoulders of Internet First, AI First wouldn’t be arriving at the station without established Internet and mobile behaviours. However, the nature and growth of AI First is likely to differ significantly from its two predecessors: and so will the new consumer expectations that accompany it.

    New ways of engaging with consumers

    AI is already beginning to provide brands with new ways of engaging with consumers and, in the fullness of time, AI will provide consumers more ways of engaging with brands. We will also create a multitude of ways that AI can act as the glue that holds the customer journey together. AI apps and agents will engage with consumers on behalf of brands, with brands on behalf of the consumer, and with other AI apps and agents in order to get the job done.

    AI apps and agents will engage with consumers on behalf of brands, with brands on behalf of the consumer, and with other AI apps and agents in order to get the job done.

    For example, you can already book a table at some restaurants via their conversational AI app. Chatbots are already in use by a small, but growing number of restaurants to handle reservation enquiries 24 hours a day, but they are becoming more and more advanced. Some are already able to answer your questions about the menu, make recommendations and make a note of your personal preferences for your evening out. Soon more AI services will be able to seamlessly interact with you across chat, telephone and email.

    In the very near future, you will be able to task your own AI assistant with booking the table, guided by the preferences you’ve already stored (such assistants have already been developed). The assistant will only involve you as much as your want it to, otherwise it will simply confirm your booking. However, there is a third possibility, your AI assistant could deal directly with the restaurant’s AI assistant (or AI agent), without the need for the protocols and niceties of human conversation. Same result, but faster and more efficient.

    The concept of ‘Human AI’

    Now, with all this artificial intelligence connecting, communicating and managing your customer journey, it would be all to easy for brands to allow AI to define how your customer experience should be and how best to support it. An AI platform, of any kind, will only be equipped to do this effectively it if has access to the right data. And for AI apps that are going to support and interact with humans, it’s important that that data is provided by humans and that humans are able to guide and play a role in refining AI’s process.

    As more conversational AI platforms handle a growing number of customer requests and interactions, brands will want to make sure that their customer service bots meet or exceed customer expectations. After all, a tedious or unfulfilling reservation experience could lead to an increasing volume of lost business. This is where the concept of Human AI comes in. Humans need to be ‘in the loop’ to make sure that the technology serves humans, not the other way around.

    “There is no artificial intelligence without human intelligence”

    As global analyst firm Gartner says: there is no artificial intelligence without human intelligence. As time goes on, and people become more accustomed to being supported and served by AI, there will be many more changes to consumer behaviour. Although it’s true that AI will be able to leverage the data captured about these changes, human insight will still be required to prioritise that data, to ideate based on the insights that AI provides, and to make the nuanced decisions about how to meet new consumer expectations.

    Why would we need a Human AI approach, you may ask? After all, isn’t the promise of AI that it will learn, adapt and create things for us? The short answer is that we need to keep humans in the loop, because human behaviour isn’t a constant. It changes.

    We need to keep humans in the loop, because human behaviour isn’t a constant. It changes

    Engaging with company chatbots today can still be a little like dealing with the office intern. They’re certainly eager to please, but often they lack specific domain knowledge, communication skills and the ability to recommend how the business can meet customer needs. Many chatbots, even GenAI chatbots, are configured to handle a very limited scope of customer questions. For example, ask for a business address and you may receive a correct answer, but ask if the main entrance is at the front or back of the building and you may get a reply like “sorry, I cannot assist you with that”.

    Consumer expectations will continue to rise!

    In the early days of customer service chatbots, customers may have been happy to jump call centre queues, immediately be given the right form to fill out, or be able to contact the company 24 hours a day. Today, those core benefits are just ‘a given’. Over time, how efficient a chatbot or AI assistant is in providing the data to answer your query is going become less and less important to you. How an assistant provides you with the help you need and how you feel about that interaction is going to become more important.

    As AI First behaviour becomes more commonplace, so will the demand for AI services that put human needs, wants and nuances first. Tech firms, developers, marketing agencies and brands will need to use Human AI strategies, frameworks and practices to meet those rising expectations.

    This article first appeared in my monthly AI First newsletter.

    Image credit:  Carrington Malin via Musavir.ai.

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    January 10, 2025
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    When do you tell them that it’s AI?

    It’s becoming a new communications quandary – When do you tell your audience that you’ve used AI in creating something?

    When do you announce proudly that your new creation was produced using the latest AI technologies? When do you need a disclaimer? And is it ethical to keep quiet about it altogether? These are questions that that I’ve given quite a lot of thought to over the past couple of years.

    At this point, two year’s after the launch of OpenAI”s ChatGPT, it’s not hard to figure out that very soon everyone is going to use Generative AI tools to help them in everyday communications, writing, and to produce creative work.

    However, I believe that we are still at the messy stage of GenAI!

    The messy stage of GenAI!

    The quality of GenAI generated content still varies greatly due to differences in technology platforms, the skills of the end user and the type of job at hand. This means that we’re going to continue to see a wide variety of content at varying levels of quality and effectiveness and that most of us will be able to identify a high percentage of AI content when we see it. Spotting AI content is becoming a sort of superpower! Once you begin noticing AI content, you just can’t stop seeing it. So, in this environment, it could be a judgement call deciding when to be proud of your AI content and tell everyone what you’ve done, and when to keep quiet.

    Spotting AI content is becoming a sort of superpower! Once you begin noticing AI content, you just can’t stop seeing it.

    There are also, of course, ethical dilemmas which accompany AI content, including how to decide when AI has had a positive impact (added value) or a negative one (e.g. done someone out of a job). Then there is copyright, fair use of data, and the potential for AI plagiarisation.

    Timing

    As with most things concerning communications, what you say and don’t say has a lot to do with timing. Firstly, many of the issues that we wrestle with today, could be a thing of the past in five years time. For example, the negative connotations to your multi-million dollar business cancelling your photography agency’s contract, because your going to save money by creating all your catalogue shots using AI. This is a very present day issue. In ten years time, whatever photographers remain in business will have adjusted to the new reality and no one will bat an eyelid if you never hire an agency of any kind, ever again.

    Secondly, like any other communications requirement, with a little forethought and planning you should be able to work out what messages and policies to put in place now when talking about AI in today’s environment and then map out how these might change over the next year or two, according to potential changes in perceptions and reputational risks. Just because AI has some unknowns, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be planned for.

    A little empathy goes a long way

    The biggest risk, as usual, is not taking into account the perceptions of employees, customers and other stakeholders in your use of AI, and communications about it. Part of the problem here is that many organisations these days have a team of people that are well-versed in AI, but this often does not include the communications and marketing team!

    Whilst all your marketing counterparts may be jolly impressed that you created your latest campaign in one day and made it home in time for tea, your customers are likely to care more about your message and what that campaign means to them.

    So, does one announce “AI campaigns”? For me, it’s all about whether this helps meet the goals, resonates with the target audience and doesn’t risk upsetting other audiences. Whilst all your marketing counterparts may be jolly impressed that you created your latest campaign in one day and made it home in time for tea, your customers are likely to care more about your message and what that campaign means to them. It’s easy to let the ‘humble AI brag’ creep into communications because we all want to be seen moving with the times, but unless there’s a clear benefit for your key audiences, it really doesn’t belong there.

    Transparency and authenticity

    As with many corporate reputation risks, reviewing how and where more transparency should be offered on AI usage can help mitigate some of that risk. For example, making it clear that your website chat support is responded to by an AI chatbot and not a human, can help avoid customers making false assumptions (and perhaps being unnecessarily annoyed or upset).

    What about marketing content? Should you be transparent about what content was created using AI? My experience is that the more personal the communication, the more sensitivity there is. I may not care if your $100,000 billboard was created entirely by AI, but when I when I receive a personal email from you, I probably expect more authenticity.

    A personal perspective

    Last year, I began labelling my LinkedIn content to show where and how I used AI. The use of ChatGPT and other Generative AI tools to write posts, articles and comments has started to proliferate on LinkedIn. As you have probably seen yourself, sometimes people use GenAI to great effect and sometimes content lacks context, nuance and the human touch that makes it engaging. So, I’ve found that posting in this environment can invite scrutiny – and occasionally accusations as to whether you are using AI to post, or not.

    I would much rather that the focus remains on what my content communicates, rather than what role AI played.

    I use AI extensively when planning, creating and repurposing content, but I still create more content with little or no help from AI. Although AI-generated content rarely accounts for more than 50% of any written work, I don’t really want my audience to either assume that I’m using AI to generate everything, nor to assume that I don’t use AI at all. Additionally, I would much rather that the focus remains on what my content communicates, rather than what role AI played. So, I now add a footnote at the end of all my LinkedIn posts and articles, which mentions whether I’ve used AI and what I’ve used it for.

    If you are guided by your goals, your audience, the context and the potential risks, then deciding on how and when to communicate your use of AI can be very straightforward.

    This article first appeared in my monthly AI First newsletter.

    Image credit:  Drazen Zigic via Freepik.

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    January 28, 2020
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    Our new AI first world will emerge standing on the shoulders of mobile-first

    Our AI first world is emerging standing on the shoulders of the mobile-first world, but it will also raise its own generation of AI natives

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai called it a few years ago in a letter to company shareholders, when he said that we’re all moving from a mobile-first world to an AI first world. On the face of it, this seemed quite straightforward to understand. Businesses are seeing artificial intelligence become embedded into more and more processes, with software developers making it easier and easier for companies to leverage AI across their organisations. Meanwhile, consumers are already using a wide variety of applications that are supported by AI every day, drawing on Big Data, machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing (NLP).

    However, Google’s corporate strategy is also a prediction of a new world to come and a fundamental shift in human behaviour. Our new AI first world isn’t simply a world where AI is embedded into all technology, nor just a way for organisations to improve performance and save money. Truly pervasive AI will mean that there will be few human actions where AI assistance is not available and for consumers, their first touch point for any brand will be AI. The early signs of this are clearly visible today.

    Businesses are already trying to make our lives easier, whilst drawing in consumers to have deeper relationships with their brands, by using AI to provide consumers with more timely and appropriate interactions, prompted by personalised recommendations and communications. More often than not though, these AI supported communications are limited to certain channels.

    AI is also being used more extensively to engage and converse with the consumer, exchanging information and providing feedback, 24/7. A recent survey of 450 customer service and support leaders worldwide by Gartner found that 37 percent are either piloting or using AI bots and virtual customer assistants (VCAs).

    Gartner forecast that chatbots and VCAs will be used in 25 percent of customer service and support operations by 2020, although estimates today range from 23 percent to 80 percent. However, what is clear is that companies that have implemented chatbots are reporting reductions in customer calls, email and other enquiries, which Gartner says may be reduced by up to 70 percent of pre-AI volumes.

    Crucially, Gartner also points out that AI will be a major force in shaping customer self-service. In the future, AI will empower customer-led approaches to service, where a customer’s preferred option may be i) do it myself, ii) let’s do it together iii) let my AI bot do it for me, or iv) let our AI bots do it together.

    Today, when most consumers think about interacting with AI, they tend to think of a device or channel such as Amazon’s Alexa Echo, or Android’s Google Assistant or the Apple and Microsoft alternatives. More and more will have experience of chatting with AI bots via Facebook, Whatsapp or company websites, and an increasing number will talk to call centre AIs when contacting their bank, telecom or other service providers.

    No doubt, virtual assistants are going to be instrumental in creating our new AI first world. However, these are destined to become a utility, embedded into almost every device, process and transaction imaginable. This means that whether you are watching TV, shopping at the mall or dining in a restaurant, your first point of contact with any brand could be conversational AI.

    Every business, therefore, is going to be under increasing pressure to become an AI first business, and to do so at a speed that few today are prepared to even consider, even those in the midst of that very process. So, let’s take a step back and review the case of mobile-first marketing.

    The phrase ‘mobile-first’ started to gain popularity about ten years ago. In fact, Luke Wroblewski’s book ‘Mobile First’ was published in 2009. This new approach to consumer marketing strategy was taken in response to the new generation of smartphones usage, which arguably began with Apple’s 2007 iPhone launch. Smartphones, social media and new location-specific services were driving demand for mobile broadband. And, in turn, marketing started to revolve around SoMoLo engagement (social, mobile and local).

    As has often been the case, marketing technology lagged behind. Mobile marketing and services were prohibitively difficult manage and integrate with online marketing, CRM and in-store retail. Mobile marketing was, a first, limited to a few mobile channels and lacked integration with the rest of the marketing ecosystem, fragmenting customer journeys.

    However, over the past five years we’ve seen mobile marketing become integrated. CRM systems, analytics, marketing managing platforms, advertising media placement, software deployment and payment transactions can now all be managed using integrated tools that allow more of a 360 degree view of the business. Brands recognise that consumers are using smartphones to do product research and browse options, even as they walk around their stores, and they now have the technology to offer and integrate mobile experiences with a wide variety of channels: whether they are paid, earned, shared or owned.

    The swift rise of connected mobile devices forced marketers and martech developers to create integrated, cross-platform, omnichannel strategies and solutions that allow for a more seamless customer experience and give a business a 360 degree view of communications. This is important, since — as we’re seeing today — adding new channels into marketing management systems and CRM, such as AI chatbots, is no great hurdle to jump.

    Just how integrated your mobile brand experience is, currently depends on where you live. China has the highest usage of mobile payments, with a mobile payment penetration rate of 35.2 percent. Alipay, WeChat Pay and other online payment apps are popular in almost all cities in China and this year an estimated half a billion Chinese will using their mobile devices to pay in brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants and other retail outlets.

    Our future AI first world is obviously going to emerge standing on the shoulders of the mobile-first world.

    Google launched its answer to Amazon Alexa in 2016 and, due to the widespread adoption of its Android mobile platform, was able to make the virtual assistant available in 80 countries and 30 languages within two years. Today, Google Assistant is available on more than 1 billion devices.

    So, from an AI first communications point of view, businesses can already engage with consumers across a range of AI conversational interfaces, to include chatbots, voice assistants, call centres and email. What’s yet to be developed is the interoperability that allows a brand to chat with you via Facebook Messenger, then call you via an AI call centre and then, perhaps, greet you via an AI voice assistant when you walk into their showroom: all whilst seamlessly continuing the same thread of conversation.

    Technology vendors such as Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Nuance Communications are all investing in the development of end-to-end conversational platforms that allow organisations to engage in complex conversations using the same conversation agent across multiple platforms.

    It’s early days for end-to-end conversational platforms, but, for example, it is already possible to develop a virtual customer assistant using IBM’s artificial intelligence platform Watson, then use that VCA to communicate via Amazon Alexa or Google. If this is developed to integrate with IBM’s next-generation call center Voice Gateway, with a little help from a cloud communications platform like Twilio, the same technology can be used to make and receive voice calls, send SMS and converse with customers via Whatsapp.

    The development of these multi-purpose conversational platforms will, ultimately, give organisations the ability to create, deploy and manage conversation agents anywhere the technology exists for a consumer to interact. Voice assistants are already starting to be used in automobiles, public transport, retail stores, museums, restaurants and many other scenarios. So, why not refrigerators, automatic doors, escalators and soda machines too?

    All of this means that consumer expectations for AI first services are going to soar rapidly, putting pressure on businesses to not only cover the bases, but to innovate to create engaging customer experiences. To do this, organisations have a lot to learn very quickly. AI first communication requires technology, new knowledge and skills, customer experience and, of course, lots of data.

    Unlike previous waves of technology that have required users to learn about how the technology works in some detail in order to derive value from it, conversational AI makes it easy for consumers to engage and benefit from an almost infinite variety of AI supported services without ever reading a manual.

    Consumer adoption is going to be fast and, as people grow weary of mobile HTML pages and typing data requests, so they going to be more open to innovative new AI voice experiences. AI voice communication will simply become the path of least resistance.

    In fact, as the next generation of consumers come online, they will be growing up with AI first services. Our latest Generation Zs and their successors will grow up ‘AI natives’, with their own needs, preferences, behaviours and habits developing in tune with the new AI first world. The only respite for businesses today is that for the next ten years most of their customers will, at least, remember how to deal with them without help from artificial intelligence.

    This story first appeared on My AI Brand (Medium)

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