Can AI help customer service reps help customers better?

Love it or hate it, so-called generative artificial intelligence has proved its ability to make at least one type of worker more productive on the job. Using the enhanced AI boosted the productivity of customer service representatives at a Fortune 500 software firm by 14%, according to the first study to examine the emerging technology's use by employees in a real workplace.

Notably, human support agents reported resolving more customer queries per hour when aided by a custom-built tool powered by OpenAI's GPT technology. 

Assistance from the AI also improved customer sentiment, reduced the volume of requests for managerial intervention, and even improved employee retention, presumably because it allowed service agents to have more pleasant interactions with customers, according to Erik Brynjolfsson, one of the paper's authors and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) and director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.