Pulsepoint Solutions needs to make a critical decision — should a gen AI chatbot replace their current chatbot to enhance customer service and sales? CEO Jeannie Weiss believes that capitalizing on new technology early is crucial to avoid running the risk of falling behind one’s competitors. CTO John Bart believes that a slower paced approach could be beneficial in order to allow a competitor to pioneer the technology to allow them to improve upon the design and avoid making the same mistakes the pioneers of the field make.
As Dharmesh Shah, CTO of Hubspot, mentions, gen AI capabilities have been doubling every six to nine months. By the time any given solution is implemented, the technology will have progressed significantly. Therefore, the potential of falling behind is not to be taken lightly. Early action would allow Pulsepoint to have the competitive advantage of being the first to implement the technology, in addition to potentially improving customer satisfaction, streamlining sales processes and in turn, boosting profit margins.
On the other hand, moving too quickly can lead to issues with hallucinations and chatbot quality, data privacy, and customer pushback. Additionally, it can create feelings of anxiety among employees who will view the push for a gen AI chatbot as an effort to replace them.
Pulsepoint should focus on enhancing the existing chatbot as John suggested, working on facets of its quality like response time. As Jim Lecinski mentioned, it’s more important to address matters that the company is already struggling with like being less profitable than its competitors first, rather than focusing on new features.
While improving existing features, the company should test a gen AI chatbot for internal, non customer-facing uses. They should closely monitor the chatbot for any potential issues, improving it incrementally. They could then streamline their internal operations while avoiding any mishaps with hallucinations or other problems that might cause customer pushback when they do eventually implement the chatbot for sales and customer service purposes. This approach would allow them to avoid the disadvantage of falling behind since AI capabilities progress quickly while still refraining from making any rash decisions and learning from the mistakes of whichever of their competitors is the first to roll out their gen AI chatbot for customer-facing purposes. As Lecinski said, Jeannie’s enthusiasm and optimism could be dangerous from a business perspective, so a more measured approach should be taken.
