The key to business success is not IF you should use AI.

The key to success is WHERE you put the human.

At a conference a couple of weeks ago, I participated in an engaging discussion on AI’s role in business. The use cases were broad and compelling – from automating routine tasks to surfacing data-driven insights.

But it was Brandon White’s obviously simple yet deeply profound comment on customer support that really hit me in the face.

He said, “It’s not about IF you should use AI; the key is where you put the human.”

Brandon described the common experience of trying to resolve a support issue with a chatbot – a process that, when confronted with the bot’s limitations, quickly becomes frustrating.

There are certainly many tasks that AI can handle with superior speed and accuracy. This should allow you to allocate human talent to the areas that require emotional intelligence, creative thinking, and good old-fashioned problem-solving.

As Customers, we want to feel confident that our needs are understood and met.

To deliver that experience, smart companies are using AI for initial triage and common inquiries but also seamlessly hand off to a live human agent for a personal touch when needed.

WHEN that handoff takes place is critical to the Customer’s experience.

I have a lot of questions that only time and experimentation will really answer. Will our tolerance for human substitutes increase over time? Eventually, will the pendulum swing back the other way, relegating AI to the lowest and least valued form of interaction?

Where do you see the most promising opportunities to pair human ingenuity with artificial capabilities? I’d love to hear your perspectives in the comments!