Generative artificial intelligence continues to capture interest and was a major highlight at last week’s Google Cloud Next event. It’s influencing a wide range of industries, including in the contact center.

At Definity Financial Corp., the technology is making a big impact. It involves working with clients to do gen AI-based implementations, many of them on Google, according to Ron Mills (pictured, left), vice president of API, data platforms and infrastructure, and cloud at Definity.

“Being able to manage the scaling or the volatility in call demands is a big thing for us,” Mills said. “So, how can we drive more efficiency away from the call agent? When you actually want to reach someone, you want to have that person-to-person conversation, not be waiting in the queue because someone’s doing authentication or because the agent’s trying to wrap up the call. We tried to take out some of those low-value interactions so we can have more high-value … person-to-person interactions.”

Mills and  Anand Nimkar (pictured, right), chief architect and generative AI practice leader at Deloitte Consulting LLP, spoke with theCUBE Research analysts Rebecca Knight and Savannah Peterson at Google Cloud Next 2024, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed AI-driven transformations in the contact center and current trends in gen AI implementation. (* Disclosure below.)

Removing unnecessary tasks through automation

Definity went live with a Google Contact Center AI virtual agent at the end of 2023. The thinking was around how to improve the customer experience and the employee experience by leveraging some of the new technology on the market, according to Mills.

“Some of the things we looked at are, what were the long poles in those experiences or in that journey and a lot of it having to do with call wrap-up, having to do with authentication,” Mills said. “What are things that are taking a lot of time from an agent’s perspective but not adding a lot of value? And then working with partners like Deloitte, starting to build out what that solution could look like and how we can drive more efficiencies.”

Many of Deloitte’s clients, especially in financial services, are focused on knowledge retrieval or removing information disparity, according to Nimkar.

“We’re looking at solving very challenging business problems,” he said. “It’s a problem where we need to leverage AI to either re-engineer processes or … maybe generating new revenue through marketing or other challenges. We’re learning more about the tech every day.”

Companies want employees to have access to information that is instantly relevant to their context, Nimkar added.

“In the call center, that shows up in a very interesting way. Agents, when they’re on a call with a customer, they’re often navigating multiple applications,” he said. “The most I’ve ever seen in one flow was like over 30 applications that an agent had to do to execute an interaction. [You] can remove some of that through automation, through generative AI.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of Google Cloud Next 2024:

(* Disclosure: Deloitte Consulting LLP sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Deloitte nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE