Big data enables businesses to thrive and grow by finding hidden patterns in data. Brands are now getting smarter by taking actions based on customer sentiments. Not only brands but also political parties and governments are looking at social sentiments as a valuable resource for growth. With big data, real-time customer sentiment analysis has become possible. Social media has completely changed how people express themselves.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language programming (NLP) are changing the ways brands interact with customers. AI-based personalization enables brands to increase customer engagement, improve loyalty, increase sales and more completely understand their customers -- all in real-time. Using AI, brands are able to customize their website content based on each specific customer, which helps to improve conversion rates. This article will look at 6 ways that AI is shaping personalization for customers. Although some brands do use facial recognition to identify customers, the practice is viewed as invasive by the majority of consumers.

While it's not uncommon for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to switch financial institutions, the 2019 FIS Performance Against Customer Expectations report has found that the rate of churn is increasing. Historically, 13%-15% of small and medium-sized firms have been found to be actively reviewing their banking relationships. However, the turnover rate has now risen to 61% among the top 50 U.S. banks and 60% among regional banks. All it may take to push an already skeptical firm to switch is one more bad experience. So customer sentiment analysis could be exactly what financial institutions need to improve customer experience -- ideally, before things ever reach that pass.

Punchh, the leader in digital marketing solutions for physical retailers, today announced the launch of Punchh Deep Sentiment Analysis. The new product allows brands to extract valuable insights from customer reviews using Punchh's natural language comprehension engine built with industry-leading deep learning and artificial intelligence. Its natural language processing model achieves human-level performance, defined as more than 93 percent accurate, and features multi-language support. "In today's hyper-competitive climate, brands need to do everything they can to foster and nurture direct customer relationships, and paying attention to customer reviews is an essential part of that," said Shyam Rao, CEO of Punchh. "Manually reading every review is prohibitively time-consuming for most retailers, which leads to slower response times and poor customer experiences. Our solution uses AI and machine learning to help brands analyze reviews at scale and immediately identify critical information so they can focus on high-level insights and make quick decisions to strengthen customer relationships and increase loyalty."