Want to prepare for generative AI? Get your knowledge base up to par

Yahoo

4 hours ago

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The rise of generative AI-powered search engines and agents is poised to change how people interact with brands, from buying products to seeking customer service.
The technology is still in the early days, and no one can say just how the generative AI future will pan out. However, experts encourage CX leaders to prepare for however AI models evolve by putting a proper knowledge sharing strategy in place.
'Inaction is a big risk,' Brett Leary, generative AI transformation and global retail lead at Accenture, told CX Dive. 'You do have the opportunity to do something now in terms of making sure your site is accessible to these models.'
Third-party customer service is already immensely popular. Consumers say that, on average, they successfully find the answers they need through third parties like YouTube or Google 62% of the time, according to a Gartner survey of more than 5,800 people released earlier this month.
Generative AI is making its mark as younger customers add AI tools to their third-party customer service mix. Gen Z, for example, uses ChatGPT as often as video sites like YouTube before they interact with customer service channels, according to Gartner's research.
Consumers have interest in AI shopping agents as well, with three-quarters saying they would be open to using a trusted AI-powered personal shopper that understands their needs, according to a June Accenture survey of 18,000 people in 14 countries.
Generative AI adoption is on the rise among consumers, and CX leaders have an opportunity to prepare their operations to keep up with how customers are viewing their information.
Information is the lifeblood of AI tools whether they are first or third party, which makes it paramount for leaders to prepare their knowledge base with AI in mind, according to Keith McIntosh, senior principal quantitative researcher on the customer service and support team at Gartner.
'It's the common denominator, whether a customer is accessing knowledge through a third-party aggregator, gen AI third-party aggregator, or whether they're going to your site and using your company search, they need knowledge, and they need the right knowledge,' McIntosh told CX Dive.
The large language models behind third-party AI tools act similarly to the web crawler bots that power traditional search engines, according to Leary. They visit brand sites and capture information that can be used to train AI models, which influences the results provided to end users.
As a result, CX leaders need to think about how LLMs as well as customers will read their pages, according to Leary. One way to appeal to both people and machines is to make sure the information featured on a site is presented clearly and confidently.
'Are we answering people's questions in an authoritative type of view?' Leary said. 'These LLMs, as we're learning, are looking for that type of content to use as they go and respond to questions, and so you start to think about the impact on your content strategy.'
Ensuring product and service knowledge is both comprehensive and accurate a top priority whether customers discover it on the brand website, a search engine or a generative AI assistant, according to McIntosh.
'We're encouraging organizations to make themselves the main source of truth on their products and services, and to invest in a quality knowledge management system because it's relevant regardless of where customers are getting their answers,' McIntosh said.
Perhaps the biggest challenge of consumers turning to third-party AI tools is dealing with the loss of control. Individual companies have little to no control over the experience of customers who use Google or ChatGPT to seek out information.
However, this may not be as big a problem as it appears.
There is no correlation between the amount of effort a customer puts into solving a problem via third-party services and the satisfaction with the service provided by the company, according to Gartner's survey. Customers simply don't penalize companies for the effort they put into resolving an issue through external sites.
While brands won't have complete control over what third parties do with their content, partnerships with AI providers can help companies ensure the information AI agents provide customers is accurate, according to Leary.
Retailers like Target are working with OpenAI to test its Operator agentic AI, which can shop directly on behalf of customers. Such partnerships could help these companies join the upcoming AI ecosystem with the right foot forward.
Content in general will be important as well, according to Leary. Brands will still control the information they put on their sites, and that is what generative AI will draw from even as it acts on behalf of customers.
Leaders can't police the internet, according to Leary. As a result, their best bet is to deliver accurate content to third-party LLM providers to help ensure their output provides a good experience.
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