How generative AI can improve customer engagement platforms

• Twilio CustomerAI can unlock generative and predictive capabilities for over 300,000 customers. 
• Software integrated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT has exciting prospects for members of Twilio’s community.

When it comes to customer engagement, organizations want to be able to understand everything they can about their customers. This includes having in-depth data on customer demographics and their shopping habits, from preferred payment methods to social media engagement with the brand.

Over the years, technology has enabled organizations to understand their customers better. The use of customer engagement platforms has enabled businesses to have more insights based on the data collected.

In fact, research by Mordor Intelligence states that the customer engagement solutions market size is expected to grow from US$19.73 billion in 2023 to US$33.11 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 10.91% during the forecast period. The research states that the popularity of online and mobile shopping is allowing customers to quickly obtain information about various products and services through various channels faster.

“With the average time spent on a mobile device exceeding five hours per day and the availability of numerous customer touchpoints, including social media, websites, live chats, and phone calls, in addition to in-person assistance, brands are discovering several opportunities to engage consumers with their brand and increase revenues,” the report stated.

At the same time, the rise of generative AI is bringing about a new update to customer engagement platforms. While most platforms already have some form of automation in place to generate insights from the data harnessed, generative AI is expected to enhance the process a lot more.

Generative AI in customer engagement platforms

One company that is already integrating generative AI into its customer engagement platform is Twillio. Already recognized for its customer engagement platform that drives real-time, personalized experiences for leading brands, Twilio will enable companies to create personalized, customer-aware experiences powered by OpenAI.

OpenAI is already one of the fastest-growing AI companies in the world after releasing ChatGPT late last year. Today, its GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 models are already being implemented into a variety of use cases around the world.

Through this integration, Twilio customers will be able to use OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to power new generative capabilities in Twilio Engage, its multichannel marketing solution built atop the Segment Customer Data Platform. The combination of Twilio Segment and OpenAI’s powerful Large Language Models (LLM), will create new opportunities for businesses to activate a unique understanding of their customers across every interaction.

“As AI drives down the cost of intelligence, it is increasingly possible for companies to deliver a deeply personalized experience for every customer. We know how much people want this, and we’re happy to be working with Twilio to bring it to the world. Twilio Segment’s Customer Data Platform will enable today’s and tomorrow’s large language models to unlock deep personalization at scale for every business,” said Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI.

This integration is part of Twilio CustomerAI, a technological layer that combines the capabilities of predictive and generative AI with the abundant customer data flowing through Twilio’s Customer Engagement Platform. Although many companies recognize the importance of utilizing their data to understand their customers, they often encounter difficulties in doing so. Challenges arise with data pipelines breaking, data formats swiftly evolving, and data teams lacking the capacity to fully exploit the potential of their customer data.

OpenAI and Twilio

In the current landscape, as AI rapidly unlocks fresh opportunities, the significance of having well-organized, pristine, and actionable data that is primed for AI has never been more critical. And this is where Twilio’s Customer Engagement Platform empowers companies to unleash their data potential. It starts by creating an understanding of its customers using Twilio Segment, then applies that understanding throughout its contact center via Twilio Flex, its marketing campaigns using Twilio Engage, and its products. Across every customer touchpoint, Twilio CustomerAI integrates deeper customer comprehension and personalization.

“It’s clear that Large Language Models are the next wave of innovation in customer engagement. Experiences like ChatGPT are coming to the enterprise to power groundbreaking experiences in sales, service, content, marketing and more. Twilio CustomerAI enables companies to build customer-aware interactions – giving the language models context about the customer they’re helping. Without customer awareness, any ChatGPT-like experiences would be generic and unhelpful. But with CustomerAI, companies can transform LLMs into the most helpful, knowledgeable agent imaginable at scale,” commented Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio.

The integration with OpenAI will formalize the exciting prospects that numerous members within Twilio’s community of over 10 million developers have already been experimenting with. For instance, a ChatGPT plugin can be developed for Twilio Flex, granting users direct access to Flex through ChatGPT’s interface—a fresh channel for brands to enhance customer service.

Meanwhile, developers can craft voice-activated chatbots by combining Twilio’s native speech recognition and Amazon Polly Neural text-to-speech capabilities with ChatGPT. Another illustration involves the synergy of ChatGPT with Twilio Programmable Messaging, which can be harnessed to construct a serverless SMS chatbot. These instances underscore the immense potential of OpenAI and Twilio’s ongoing aligned endeavors, along with the value it offers to customers striving to elevate their customer engagement approaches.

On concerns about privacy, Twilio and OpenAI have dedicated themselves to constructing AI securely and responsibly. Twilio embeds privacy and security as integral components in its product development lifecycle, guaranteeing that companies possess complete transparency and control over the data driving AI-powered interactions with their customers. Through partnerships with trusted, top-tier entities that meet its privacy and data protection benchmarks, Twilio ensures a commitment to these principles.

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