Over the past three years, we've been overwhelmed with hype around AI and automation's impact on customer service interactions. By now, we were all supposed to be regularly interacting with voice-based robotic systems that were indistinguishable from human beings -- remember the Google Duplex demo from the spring of 2018? Like those jetpacks we were promised as kids, the future does not yet resemble our science fiction dreams. Improvements to these customer-facing service systems have been much more incremental than revolutionary. But 2020 is the year we will see real evidence of dramatic changes to customer service organizations themselves.

These are some of the quandaries you may be faced with in 2018, according to the experts who appeared on SAP Game-Changers Radio 2018 Predictions, presented by SAP. The first installment of a five-part series, the show aired live December 6, 2017. Host/moderator Bonnie D. Graham asked 15 leading experts, academics, and business influencers what they see in their crystal ball for 2018. Each person was given just two minutes to share their predictions for what the next year holds for their industry, business, the world, and technology. The market is interested and the technology has matured.