Ask any executive where they’d most like to put a chatty AI to work, and there’s a good chance they’ll say customer service. The versatility of chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) can seem like a natural fit for fielding gripes and headaches, which could spell trouble for call-center or other support workers.

So will the next generation of AI assure that you never talk to a human representative again and that headset workers will be out of a job?

Experts say it’s not so simple. One thing that’s certain is that customer service jobs are here for the foreseeable future—and the field may always require some form of human touch. But AI is already starting to change how some of these workers do their jobs in the form of generated scripts and call summaries.

Research firm Gartner predicts that generative AI will prompt a 20%–30% decrease in the number of customer service and support agents by 2026. Customer service was classified by Pew as one of the most likely jobs to have “medium exposure” to AI, meaning the technology could replace workers in the sector or enhance their productivity. And McKinsey found that the field was one of those most at risk for automation-related job losses.

“[Generative AI] is just really going to reshape customer service in ways that we don’t even understand yet,” Forrester Principal Industry Analyst Max Ball told Tech Brew.

Keep reading here.—PK

These days, components that can read nerve signals are about the size of a suitcase.

It’s time to think smaller. Autonomix has been able to generate 3,000x more sensitive nerve detection utilizing a tiny microchip. And for something so little, the medical implications are gigantic.

Think of it as a potential “GPS” for the nervous system. By placing this microchip at the end of a catheter, Autonomix is developing technology that doctors can use to detect a wide range of disorders. This places the company at the core of an estimated $100b market opportunity.

But it gets even better. This company is planning a NASDAQ listing with the ticker “ATX”—and they’re inviting you to become a shareholder before it happens.

Invest in Autonomix while they’re still private.

One company not afraid to take generative AI for a test drive: CarMax. The used-car retailer behemoth has been kicking the tires of the new tech to bolster its value proposition: helping people find cars.

The input and the output: The company’s SEO staff tasked GPT with digesting online evals, sent out 30 days after a purchase. The model then presented a paragraph summary—one that’s reviewed by a human writer and then posted on the site. GPT synthesized the survey information and produced output that, after a human review, ended up on the site.

“Manually, a content writer would have to go find those 5,000 different reviews on the different types of make and model, With ChatGPT, we’re able to actually do that in an automated way,” Shamim Mohammad, CarMax CIO, told IT Brew.

But companies aren’t necessarily ready to trust AI to make one-paragraph decisions based on a superhighway full of data.

Keep reading here.—BH

Patients in Cleveland could soon get their prescriptions flown directly to them. Cleveland Clinic, one of the largest health systems in the US, announced on October 31 that it plans to begin delivering prescriptions via drone in 2025.

• The drones would first deliver specialty drugs and other prescriptions, but the health system said it plans to eventually expand drone delivery to “lab samples, prescription meals, medical and surgical supplies, and items for hospital-at-home services.”

How would drone delivery work? A Cleveland Clinic pharmacy technician would be responsible for loading a prescription into a drone that could autonomously fly to a patient’s home and use a delivery droid to drop off the prescription at the residence.

Keep reading at Healthcare Brew.—MA

Stat: More than 100. That’s the estimated number of disinformation, propaganda, and other studies no longer feasible after X’s dramatic platform changes, which have dramatically limited access to data by social media researchers, Reuters reported.

Quote: “Cruise AVs may not exercise additional care around children.”—A Cruise internal safety assessment that raised concerns about the safety of the company’s self-driving cars

Read: How citizen surveillance ate San Francisco (Wired)

Sneak a peek: Get a glimpse into how companies are spending + where they’re pulling back in Q3 at Ramp’s webinar on Nov. 9. See how your spend compares to your peers by registering here.*

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