This time last year, the launch of ChatGPT sparked one of the most meaningful shifts in consumer behavior since the iPhone’s arrival in 2007. The OpenAI platform’s explosion brought consumers face-to-face for the very first time with artificial intelligence’s power and potential. It marked a turning point for businesses in bringing AI-driven technologies to the consumer journey. 

The furore ignited by ChatGPT has demonstrated AI to be more than mere automation, which is how most consumers and business leaders have become accustomed to viewing it. Instead, we now see its true capability to sift through vast datasets and extract invaluable insights. We now see AI’s transformative potential for enhancing business experiences, offering intelligence and adaptability far beyond traditional methods.

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From the evolution of natural language processing (NLP) to the integration of machine learning algorithms, businesses can now leverage cutting-edge tools for understanding, predicting, and responding to customer needs. Here are some key technology trends to help business leaders capture the AI momentum 2024.

The magic of hyper-personalisation

AI technology and NLP provide an opportunity to explore customers’ preferences even further than previous generic approaches. Using AI to collate and sift through vast volumes of data will enable businesses to offer highly personalized experiences to their brand and shopping journeys that resonate with individual preferences and behavior.

Hyper-personalized engagement is the magic that creates a stellar and memorable customer experience. As a strategy, it has a demonstrable impact on business growth. Companies that grow faster drive 40 percent more of their revenue from personalization. This is because AI systems take individual customer insights and orchestrate relevant cross-channel personalization at scale. The more positive customer experiences elicited, the more likely customers will return.

The power of generative AI

The world may be awash with ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, which pump content based on the prompt provided by the user, but they need the context of past performance or similar data points.

Other tools let the machine learn from the performance of your past campaigns, understand context based on your audience and use case, consider the positive and negative impact of specific keywords, and help you build high return-on-investment-driven campaigns.

Tools that integrate with a marketer’s campaign builder can also help them navigate among multiple tabs or pages to execute a campaign.

It pays to be sociable

Social commerce and chatbots continue to play increasingly important roles for Asia Pacific business leaders and are likely to only improve with AI. Customer service teams will opt for AI-powered chatbots to address queries and provide immediate customer support without delay. As the technology improves, conversational AI will become the foremost choice of business-to-consumer brands to facilitate first-level interaction.

In terms of social commerce, whereby consumers buy from platforms such as Instagram or TikTok, significant growth is on the horizon. By 2026, social commerce sales will reach around US$2.9 trillion globally. 

Most social media platforms have allowed the creation of shoppable ads and posts, which has helped eliminate the need for customers to navigate to the brand’s website. Brands that are not set up for this are missing a critical opportunity to reach consumers, especially among younger demographics. They are also missing a chance to offer an even faster, smoother path to purchase. 

Zero and first-party data are the future

In light of increased scrutiny of customer privacy, brands must use a ‘zero data’ approach to customer interactions. This can be data collected from loyalty or referral programs, buying intent, or other sources.

This data can enhance hyper-personalized experiences by offering relevant product recommendations and improved customer service if clean and well-maintained. In addition, brands can use first-party data gathered from owned digital channels, such as websites and apps, surveys, feedback, newsletters, and SMS opt-ins. 

‘Zero’ and first-party data ensure brands still reach the right customers and foster relationships while remaining compliant with local and global data privacy measures. In addition, brands will demonstrate they take a responsible and ethical approach to data use, thereby building consumer trust.

The key to all customer success is understanding their preferences and being able to act quickly and effectively to meet their expectations. The technological advancements in AI are still unraveling, but the benefits to businesses and consumers are ripe for the taking now. 

About the authors

Raviteja Dodda (Ravi) is the co-founder and CEO of MoEngage, a leader in multichannel customer engagement technology. He is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur in India. Ravi has more than 10 years of experience in leading global teams and managing successful products. Prior to MoEngage, Ravi co-founded and built DelightCircle, a local offers mobile app. At DelightCircle, Ravi saw first-hand the challenges in retaining users on mobile apps and the need for a mobile-first customer engagement platform, which was how the concept for MoEngage began. Ravi has been recognized in the BW Disrupt 40 under 40 and Forbes 30 under 30 for Asia.