Hey there,

If you’re in customer service, you’ll have heard that AI is transforming the way things are done in the industry. But how, exactly? We decided it was time to park the mysterious AI predictions and find out exactly what’s happening in customer service – and how CS reps and leaders are feeling about it.

And the results are here! We’ve just published The State of AI in Customer Service: 2023 Report, gathering the opinions, concerns, and opportunities surrounding AI in CS – based on a survey of more than 1,000 global support leaders and practitioners. We’ve identified five key trends to inform your AI strategy for the rest of 2023 and beyond, as well as actionable advice to help you take the first steps.

Here are the headlines:

Customer service investments in AI are accelerating, with 69% of CS leaders planning to invest more in AI in the year ahead.
AI will enhance the role of humans in support, not replace them. 78% of support leaders expect AI to create new opportunities and job roles for CS teams over the next five years.
AI can unlock critical efficiencies for your team. 66% of support leaders are keen to leverage AI and automation to do more with less.
AI can offer a competitive edge when it comes to CX. 73% of support leaders believe that customers will expect AI-assisted customer service in the next five years – and companies that get there first will stand out from the crowd.
There’s an “AI readiness gap” between CS leaders and practitioners. More than two-thirds of support leaders believe customers are ready for AI chatbots, compared with less than half of practitioners. It will be essential to find ways to include every team member in the AI journey.

Dive into the report to discover more about calculating the ROI of your support investments, unlocking efficiency with AI bots, and getting ahead of the AI curve. Now’s the time to embrace AI – your customers will thank you for it.

The early bot catches the worm,

What’s been happening

science fiction to tech reality: impact of AI

liam geraghty

From science fiction to tech reality: Exploring the impact of AI

At Intercom, we’re thinking about the impact of AI and LLMs not just on customer service, but on society as a whole. Recently, our Senior Director of Machine Learning, Fergal Reid, and VP of Product Design, Emmet Connolly, sat down for a conversation on that very topic, exploring the big questions about AI – and what we can expect to see over the coming months and years.

Top takeaways:

In the future, some kinds of UI may be replaced with AI agents that can personalize outputs on-the-fly based on verbal input.
AI has the potential to reduce the grunt work for designers and programmers so they can focus more on the solutions and visions for their projects, rather than the execution.
As investments rise and hardware limitations are overcome, more advanced, efficient models will develop – with unprecedented levels of adoption and productization.

beth mcentee

Bots and brains: The winning combination for customer service

As exciting as the AI conversation has been, there’s also been a lot of concern about whether this technology might replace CS jobs. We don’t see that happening – the future of AI in CS will strategically combine the specialities of humans and automation, or, as we say at Intercom, “bots and brains.”

AI and automation will become support teams’ co-pilots, freeing them to explore new areas of focus that drive value for their business while providing fast, efficient support to their customers. While AI and automation take care of the manual, repetitive work, empower customers to self-serve, and successfully route customer conversations to the right team, humans handle the complex, thorny problems that build customer loyalty, and power the technology from behind the scenes.

This post hears from customer service leaders on the distinctive roles AI and automation, and human empathy and expertise, will play on support teams.

bob wallis

Everything you need to know about Fin, the breakthrough AI bot transforming customer service

Have you heard? Our breakthrough AI bot, Fin, is now available to everyone, offering a trustworthy, controllable, and seamless way for you to integrate AI into your support offering – and taking your customer experience to the next level.

It can be easy to forget that AI-powered bots are still a brand new concept – so we’ve put together everything you need to know about Fin. If you’re interested in AI bots, but aren’t sure what to expect, this post dives into the ways Fin can help your team, your customers, and your business’s bottom line.

Beth mcentee

Announcing ‘The State of AI in Customer Service: 2023 Report’

We’ve rounded up the 2023 trends that sum up the state of AI in customer service right now – and they’re as fascinating as you’d expect. This post gives a quick teaser of what you can expect from the report: the impact of recent AI developments on the CS landscape, challenges and opportunities facing teams across the world, and, best of all, tips to help you navigate the changing world of customer service.

Learn what more than 1,000 support professionals think about how to use AI and automation to unlock new heights of efficiency.

Meanwhile, on TikTok...

It's time to have the "CX talk" with your support bot.

Ensuring a great customer experience takes work and attention. Kate Sugrue sits down to explain the "bots and the bees" on the Intercom TikTok channel. Take a look!

Dive in

Response Time: Vol. 9

This week, we caught up with another support leader for our Response Time series, where we chat with customer service leaders to find out what they think about support, their book recommendations, and the emoji they couldn't do without.

Read on to find out more about the strangest thing a customer has asked John Burns, Ambassador Team Lead at Casumo.

Join our upcoming webinar

What's going on in customer service?

Do you know what the VERY BEST customer service is? Friend of the Inside Intercom podcast Shep Hyken breaks down the four best types of customer service for Forbes, including the utopian "no support" that every support team strives for.
Why it's time to make room for AI at the C-suite table: A solution to the demands of modern leadership could lie in augmented decision-making, where artificial intelligence or machine learning suggests or assists in reaching an outcome, writes Tom Ritchie of Raconteur.
8 tips you should know before implementing 24/7 customer service: Thinking about taking your customer support to the next level? At Forbes, Dmytro Lazarchuk explores some of the things you need to consider before you commit.