Artificial intelligence used to only exist in science fiction films. That’s no longer the case. Today, brands are using it to improve efficiency and productivity in all areas of business. In fact, 55% of established companies have either started making investments in artificial intelligence or are planning to do so by 2020. These investments can come in many forms, but one of the most effective is in using artificial intelligence to power chatbots.

Thrun, who founded the famous Google car project and is the chairman of Udacity, is bang on. If you really think about it, all of AI is basically a march towards building machines which can behave, process, and think like humans (but of course, not replace them).

Data shows that, for global businesses, providing support in multiple languages is well worth the effort. Nearly three quarters of people search online in their native language, which means that if you’re only communicating in English, for example, you’re probably losing customers and adding layers of inefficiencies for your agents.

The warnings say robots are coming for our jobs, but it’s more accurate to say they—AI-supported automation, that is—are taking over tasks that should be automated anyway. Taking the rote functions out of a customer service agent’s job is the perfect way to leverage AI, but support roles must evolve parallel with the technology.

It’s no surprise that AI (Artificial Intelligence) is really starting to make an impact in the customer service industry. How companies interact with customers is being strongly influenced by this emerging technology. Sure, the “chat bot” comes to mind immediately, but even that has taken a backseat to larger uses of AI which still involve (and improve upon) the human element.

If you keep up with recent trends in technology, then you’ve probably been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) lately. Artificial intelligence has many uses and is already seeing multiple cases of real-world applications. But that doesn’t tell you much about how your business can use it, or if it’s going to be something you need to adapt in the coming years. For instance, can it help you deliver a great customer experience?

2018 has been the year of artificial intelligence (AI). What was until recently just an emerging trend, has now established itself to the extent that it is already hard to imagine a work life without AI-driven applications. Chatbots—one of the more popular applications of AI —have become ubiquitous, and every SaaS company has jumped on to the AI and machine learning (ML) bandwagon.

Global AI spending is exploding. According to current trends, it will go from $2 billion in 2018 to over $7.3 billion in just the next four years1. Many publications have proclaimed it as the “next big thing” in the business world. They seem to believe that it’s poised to change the way companies interact with customers altogether. They’re less clear, though, on how businesses can actually use it. But today, one of the best uses of AI is customer service.

It would be easy to think the benefits of AI are massively overhyped. Every day there’s another article extolling the future of robots answering customer questions and reducing the need for customer support representatives. But you could be forgiven for thinking this is all hype. So far, results have been less than impressive.

AI assistants are capable of quite a bit more than their living room responsibilities, although we very much appreciate that they can order us pizza and play Spotify. In the workplace, they’re helping to fill the gaps that commonly plague customer service: miscommunications, uninformed support agents, and meeting customers’ expectations. As much as machine learning has been touted for providing better customer experiences, it can help drive better customer engagement as well.