Gartner® Report: Use Generative AI to Transform Conversational AI Solutions

Introduction

The realm of artificial intelligence is witnessing a significant transformation with the advent of Generative AI (GenAI). This emerging technology is reshaping the landscape of Conversational AI, offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation and advancement in various domains. In this blog, we delve into the world of GenAI and its combinatorial impact on Conversational AI solutions, exploring the potential and challenges it brings to the forefront.

What is Generative AI?

Generative AI refers to technologies that can generate new content, designs, and strategies by learning from large repositories of original source content. It includes the generation of text, images, videos, audio, synthetic data, and even software code. This capability has profound impacts on various aspects of business, including content discovery, creation, authenticity, and regulation; automation of human work; and enhancing customer and employee experiences.

Transforming Conversational AI with GenAI

1. Enhanced User Experience: “The addition of generative AI (GenAI) capabilities into conversational AI solutions and virtual assistants (VAs) is starting now. It will change user experience with software by making voice a preferred user interface for 60% of interactions in the next five years.” according to Gartner.
2. Advancing Capabilities: GenAI is enabling Conversational AI solutions to move beyond basic interactions to more complex and sophisticated exchanges. This includes better summarization, intelligent and humanlike domain-specific responses, and creative content generation.
3. Strategic Business Implications: “Combinatorial AI is opening up new opportunities and forcing many providers to reframe the business value of use cases such as VAs for sales or recruitment, AI avatars in a digital workplace, and conversational front ends for intelligent applications.” Says Gartner.

The Combinatorial AI Innovation

GenAI is not just an isolated technology; it represents a shift towards combinatorial AI innovation. This approach combines multiple emerging AI technologies and trends, such as foundation models, prompt engineering, and responsible AI, to unlock new values and capabilities. The result is an expanding intelligence level of Conversational AI solutions, which can be differentiated based on their GenAI-enabled capabilities.

Implications for Software Product Leaders

As per Gartner recommendations, software product leaders evaluating the impact of emerging technologies and trends on products and services should:

• Advance the software capabilities of conversational AI and VA solutions by using them in conjunction with relevant emerging technologies, such as foundation models, GenAI, prompt engineering, and responsible AI.
• Monetize AI to its full potential across emerging conversational AI and advanced VA use cases by developing domain- or industry-specific integrations and addressing transparency, bias, and security concerns.
• Enhance the functionality of existing software and content discovery products by incorporating a conversational user experience, embedded real-time decision support, and specialized predictive data analytics that directly complement their current capabilities.

Future Projections and Trends by Gartner®

By 2025, AI avatars leveraging text to video using GenAI technology will support 70% of digital and marketing communications, up from less than 1% in 2022.

By 2026, 50% of conversational AI software will include proactive intelligence capabilities, up from less than 5% in 2023.

By 2026, 50% of all sales and marketing software providers will incorporate advanced VAs as their front-end user interface, up from less than 2% in 2023. 

The Challenges and Considerations

While GenAI presents significant opportunities, it also poses challenges:

• Distinguishing between GenAI-enabled and non-GenAI capabilities in Conversational AI solutions.
• Addressing transparency, bias, and security concerns in AI implementations.
• Ensuring organizational acceptance and creating domain knowledge capabilities for successful implementation.

Human Augmentation and Business Value

GenAI is enabling human augmentation across various domains, providing new opportunities for AI avatars in digital workplaces and VAs in diverse industries. This advancement is leading to the generation of new business values, such as revenue growth and increasing prospect conversion rates.

The Road Ahead

The integration of GenAI into Conversational AI is more than just a technological upgrade; it represents a paradigm shift in how businesses interact with their customers and how software assists in decision-making processes. In the coming years, we will witness more natural and ethical interactions between humans and software, enabled by the advancements in GenAI.

As we embark on this journey, businesses and product leaders must remain agile, adapt to the evolving landscape, and harness the potential of GenAI to stay competitive and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Gartner, Use Generative AI to Transform Conversational AI Solutions, Annette Jump, 24 July 2023

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