Currently, there seems to be three main opinions about Artificial Intelligence (AI):

1. AI is potentially the most powerful tool that business—and beyond—has ever had.
2. AI is ridiculously over-hyped.
3. AI is a threat.

We believe all three are true in their respective contexts. Please allow us to explain.

AI as Most Powerful Business Tool

At its launch less than two years ago, ChatGPT surprised everyone with its near-human text interface. A year later it added voice interface. The business opportunities of this quality of machine-to-human interface are obviously huge, but the AI behind ChatGPT is also capable of analyzing, summarizing and reporting on massive amounts of raw data. This latter benefit may be even more powerful for businesses than the interface capability.

As businesses become more digitized, they produce more data. AI is the best way to understand that data to allow businesses to make decisions based on new learning.

The Over-Hyping of AI

The major tech companies developing AI and the marketing world (likely to be the first major users of AI) are talking about little else.
Those major tech companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft and the smaller AI creators like OpenAI (ChatGPT)—are spending billions on their AI development race so they have very big incentive to promote their efforts.

Canadians are using AI every time they do a Google search or open their Spotify stream, so it may seem like AI is surrounding them every day. The business world is actually adopting AI much more slowly. By current surveys, only 6% of Canadian companies reported using AI in the past 12 months.^[1]

AI as a Threat

First of all, we need to be clear on what kind of AI we’re talking about. Generative AI (Gen AI) is what’s driving the Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. LLMs are the type of Gen AI that we’re exposed to the most. This is not the kind of AI that could lead to the apocalyptic scenarios we see in modern science fiction.

It’s true that Gen AI threatens the current jobs of some human workers, just like any new technology has throughout human history. The best response has always been to let new technology do the things it does faster, more safely or better than humans, and let humans focus on the things they do better. AI can actually help humans re-train and expand their superior talents.

Our Way Forward

At the launch of ChatGPT, prognostications were for the swift disappearance of live agents in contact centers. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. AI is not ready to replace live agents for anything other than initial up-front screening for inbound and outbound contact. It won’t likely be ready for a long time in the complex product and service categories we specialize in. But it is a powerful tool in data analysis, reporting and some operational processes.

Our strategy on the use of AI in Optima’s operations is the same as our philosophy on the deployment of technology in general, which you can find on our website here.

Our guiding principle on the deployment of AI is simple: We will use AI for client projects where it actually enhances ROI.

1. “What happened to the artificial-intelligence revolution?”, economist.com, July 2, 2024.