LiveOps VP explains its approach to sandboxing AI contact center projects
There are CEOs whose timeline for deploying AI in the contact center is “yesterday,” leaving customer experience (CX) leaders torn between realizing the technology’s potential and putting their brand at risk. A company called LiveOps is offering to take some of the pressure off with a platform it says will allow them to test AI properly and scale it across the enterprise with confidence.
Based in Scottdale, LiveOps provides outsourcing service that include leveraging a network of more than 20,000 independent reps as well as AI integration services. Late last month, it launched LiveNexus, which it described as a way to orchestrate AI based on testing with real human beings and 30 years’ worth of interaction data.
As potential AI use cases are brought forward from senior leadership or discovered by CX leaders as they research solutions, LiveOps said LiveNexus would let them define the problem they’re trying to solve, run a limited test and then measure the impact on customers and reps. At that point, they can decide whether to scale further or not.
Liliana Lopez-Sandoval, LiveOps’ vice-president of technology, said the company was fundamentally trying to help its clients develop a viable operating model for successful AI adoption based on people, systems and operational considerations.
“It’s not about having the best model or the most recent AI model, it’s about, how do you operationalize AI into your organization,” she said. “That’s very different from client to client. It’s not a one-size-fits-all. It needs an analysis. It needs readiness assessment. We start by process mapping with a workflow structure, and then we decide together with the client, what workflows that are ready for AI?”
Failing to address that sort of question early on can help explain why many AI projects stall or are abandoned within contact centers, Lopez-Sandoval said. The company not only thinks about the term “orchestration” from a technical perspective but in terms of how peer groups within an organization will collaborate on decision-making and taking action on using AI in a repeatable, well-governed process.
LiveNexus should resonate with CX leaders in part because LiveOps can take a more agnostic approach to AI solutions and focus more on ensuring they’re production-ready.
“We don’t sell tools,” she said. “We’ve helping clients to develop their own AI strategy.”
Tapping into the LiveOps talent network is also a key part of LiveNexus because the company believes firmly that humans need to continue serving as a core part of AI-assisted customer service, Lopez-Sandoval said. This is particularly true when serving regulated industries and when interactions involve a more emotional moment, she added.
As the AI hype fades into reality, Lopez-Sandoval said brands are becoming more aware of the need for clear ownership and that not everything in the contact center has to be automated at once. Instead, good government needs to built in by design, and by default.
“It’s a question of balance,” she said. “We need to start changing our mindset from moving fast to moving right.”
