Forrester has just revealed its 2024 predictions for customer experience (CX), e-commerce and retail. The company emphasizes one important point: any mishap will result in a loss of customers or an unprofitable interaction.
The sanctions can be radical. Brands that launch non-inclusive experiences will hurt their bottom line. Only a quarter of the companies will benefit
e-commerce powered by generative AI. Without human oversight, Forrester predicts code failures, customer service failures, and marketing mishaps.
In short, technologies are essential to develop, but people must remain an essential element in decision-making. This is especially the case for artificial intelligence.
According to Forrester, half of the world’s largest companies will experiment with customer-facing generative AI. Successful companies will test generative AI with their employees before deploying it into customer experiences.
Protection of their privacy
Starting with internal use cases allows companies to develop GenAI expertise in a lower risk environment, delivering business value while learning to manage and mitigate hallucinations and biases.
AI is also being deployed in retail. But, only a quarter of businesses will benefit from e-commerce powered by generative AI. Almost 60% of retail sales in
America is already influenced by digital technology.
But only a quarter of companies will reap short-term benefits before increasingly privacy-conscious consumers demand tighter controls over their data.
Forrester predicts that consumer-driven data (rather than business-driven data) will limit GenAI-powered e-commerce as the technology matures and regulations proliferate.
Failures
Generative AI will cause retail spending to increase before it decreases. About one in three decision makers consider the biggest barriers to adopting generative AI:
- data privacy and concerns
- employee experience and preparation
- lack of understanding of where to apply technology
- governance and risk.
But, Forrester emphasizes one point: Without human oversight, there will be coding failures, customer service failures and marketing mishaps in scenarios like retailers inadvertently discounting items and live chats that misinform shoppers. Any mishap will result in lost customers or unprofitable interaction.
On the positive side, at least a quarter of digital technology spending will no longer be dedicated to maintenance. In an economy that requires flexibility in the face of the unexpected, companies will spend less to maintain existing systems because they will eventually eliminate obsolete technologies instead of paying to keep them alive.