The Role of People in a Highly Intelligent, Highly Customized World
The bank tellers felt it. So did the airline check in agents of yesteryear. As smarter technology advances, certain jobs are put in jeopardy. And by now, most knowledge workers—people who are hired for the expertise and acumen—are starting to realize how quickly generative AI can learn their professions and provide a qualitative alternative to their services.
I was struck by an article in Fortune about Otonomus Hotel (pronounced ‘autonomous’) which plans to differentiate itself by leaning into AI. The project leaders believe that customers (as I’ve said for years) want a highly intelligent, highly customized experience.
They plan to mimic the Airbnb model where customers can find a property that suites them. (They are making a mistake by thinking that they should customize based on personality rather than situational need, but we will let them figure that out.)
There is no reason to believe that AI can be a differentiator for more than a year or two—for any company. While it is a great solution for customers and is highly customizable, it is also common. Most hotels will have AI. If there is an industry after banks and airlines that wants to eliminate front desk workers, it’s hotels. And the faster that AI can make decisions on rent rates, promotions, bookings, etc., the better as far as most large hotel companies are concerned.
They, like their banking and airline brothers, do not see human interaction and thinking as being nearly as important as standardization of service. And what could be more standardizing than generative AI?
Now don’t get me wrong. I am actually a huge fan of generative AI. I think it gives customers superpowers. And it could give employees superpowers too—if the folks at the top invest in collaboration and having a strategic point of view. Let me explain.
Why it is so tempting to eliminate knowledge workers
For the last 20 years, many leading voices in customer engagement have argued that the most important thing a company needs is empathy—the ability, as they see it—to understand what the customer is feeling and to do something about it. Empathy is a human trait so you might think that it’s a safe place for knowledge workers to play in. The problem is that customers don’t hire companies for empathy. Unless the company or category treats people badly. Or when advice and guidance is needed.
People hire companies to get functional, emotional, social, aspirational and systemic jobs done for them. And if a tool can get those jobs done without the company’s business model (which is what happened to so many business models when apps on phones were introduced), then they use the tool for a nominal fee.
Why pay knowledge workers to identify the jobs to be done for customers if generative AI can do it for them in real time? Why pay knowledge workers who never actually engage with customers if all they are contributing to the process is empathy about the customer? Makes zero sense, if the customer just want the job done. (Goodbye traditional CX.)
The Role of the Knowledge Worker in a Highly Intelligent, Highly Customized World
Experience strategists can be the difference makers that keep a company compelling to customers. But they must retool. The great disadvantage that technology has compared to people is sameness. We saw this during the mobile first era. As companies deployed apps to accomplish tasks that people had done before every solution began to feel and look the same. No differentiation.
Sameness applied to intelligence is called hegemony. And you watch: as more companies deploy highly intelligent tools to their thinking and their customer interactions, all companies will feel hegemonic.
It is the role of the experience strategist to have a strategic point of view, grounded in customer insight, that is different from and more valuable than what AI can generate (by itself). The experience strategist must be able to create the frameworks and philosophies that will lead the company down a better path. Not to resist technology, but to harness it in a way that distinguishes the company from everyone else.
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Even still, one person or one small group of experience people within an organization cannot hope to steer the company in the right direction. People need other people who share a common point of view to bring change, creativity, and wisdom to technology. When people collaborate they gain control of the tools they use to shape their worlds. When they try to go it alone they almost always find themselves in a reactive position to smart technology.
I have seen firsthand the power of collaboration and a point of view. For twenty years, I’ve been leading The Collaboratives. Hundreds of companies have participated. I’ve watched teams form within companies and between companies. These groups have developed their point of view on technology while participating in the yearly program. And their companies are stronger for it.