The chief executive of an Indian tech startup has laid off 90 per cent of the company's support staff in favour of a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence. Suumit Shah, founder and CEO of Bangalore-based e-commerce company Dukaan, said that the bot, which was built by one of the firm's data scientists, could respond to initial queries instantly, compared to staff taking an average of one minute and 44 seconds. Shah, who founded the company in 2020, said the layoffs were'tough' but'necessary,' during a time that many others in the tech industry and elsewhere are unsure about their job security as AI's presence grows. The time taken to resolve a customer's issue also apparently dropped by almost 98 per cent on average when using the chatbot - from two hours and 13 minutes, to three minutes and 12 seconds. His company's move is just a small part of the global trend towards AI, which has seen plenty of other job losses.

While artificial intelligence (AI) models have been acknowledged for aiding imaging analysis or facilitating workflow enhancements, this author envisions AI as a potential workstation conceierge capable of turning common venting and gripes into actionable items for significant improvements.

Using satellites, drones and artificial intelligence, emerging technology is changing the way firefighting agencies and governments battle the ever-increasing threat of wildfires as hundreds of thousands of acres burn across the western United States. New programs are being developed by startups and research institutions to predict fire behavior, monitor drought and even detect fires when they first start. As climate change continues to increase the intensity and frequency of wildfires, these breakthroughs offer at least one tool in the growing arsenal of prevention and suppression strategies. "This is not to replace firefighting on the ground," said Ilkay Altintas, a computer scientist with the University of California, San Diego, who developed a fire map for the region. "The more science and data we can give firefighters and the public, the quicker we'll have solutions to combat and mitigate wildfires."

Every year, nearly 20 million students enroll in universities across the United States. Given how important the choice of a college can be for a person's academic and professional career, students understandably have a lotof questions about majors, eligibility, tuition, campus life, faculty, and more, while going through the process of selecting a university. And as universities compete to get on board students who are the right'fit', it is important for them to not only provide the right answers to prospective students' queries but also to effectively communicate precisely what they have to offer. Colleges invest a lot of time and resources in engaging with prospective students -- with US universities spending billions of dollars annually on admissions. But the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown open new challenges for universities, as they now have to find ways to engage with students at a time when in-person interactions, including visits to university campuses and college fairs, will likely not be possible.

Whatever it is they're selling, businesses today are under more pressure than ever to provide a five-star experience. Customer service is not a'nice-to-have', it's taken for granted by customers who have plenty of eager competitors at their disposal and a multitude of public forums to share their negative experiences. In times of need, if customers can't open a chatbot or pick up a phone to quickly get resolution to their issues, they'll start shopping around – customer experience is now part of the package. Meeting these real-time demands, then, is a deal-breaker, but there are also rewards. According to McKinsey, 70 percent of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated, and if you do it right, they will stick around.

The adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence could lead to the UK legal sector shedding 13,000 jobs, according to a report by the Law Society of England and Wales. The report on the future shape of the legal workforce projected a 13,000 fall in the number of jobs by 2027, equivalent to a four per cent drop. The body said the number of legal secretaries is projected to fall by nearly two thirds and other office support staff by a quarter. Many major law firms have already axed support staff, particularly in expensive locations such as London. Magic Circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer offered voluntary redundancy to all 180 of its secretaries in London in 2017, while both Ashurst and Baker McKenzie have made staff cuts in the City this year.

Customer expectations are rising in every sector and industry across the globe, which implies larger volume of incoming questions for organizations, and brand, as customers demand more meaningful interactions if they are to remain loyal nowadays. Hence the moot point is that being able to successfully respond to the customers is the golden-key to customer retention in 2019 and beyond. According to a survey conducted by Eptica (a leading European tech company specializing in intelligent platforms for digital customer experience) it states that more than 91 percent of consumers say that not replying to their questions satisfactorily gets them annoyed and thereby makes them become less loyal, while a little more than 94 percent affirms that getting a high-quality personalized response makes them more likely to do repeat purchases from that brand. Nevertheless, handling these ever-escalating volumes of customer support requests, across multiple channels, is not a straightforward easy objective to deal with, particularly as resources have not always been able to keep pace with the demands. Therefore, brands need to do more with less and are required to be more efficient, while still meeting their customer's needs.

Robotic monitoring and artificial intelligence (AI) are widely used for physical surveillance of security and defence areas, factories, and residential premises. As robots can monitor a given area tirelessly and with precision, they make the task of surveillance reliable. Powered by the capabilities of precision, tirelessness, and reliability, robotic monitoring is being used by many forward looking organisations to deliver speckless customer experience across their digital properties. Let's examine this with a few cross-industry examples. Robotic monitoring can help companies deliver a dainty user experience.

Amanda has been fighting anxiety all her life. Now that evaluation at her new job is on the way, she's all the more nervous. Taking a deep breath, she ends up typing a long tail of messages on her phone. She is full of doubts, and fear. Fear of being laughed on, fear of being less smart, and most importantly, fear of losing her job.

Providing high-quality and timely support is key to establishing and maintaining a strong relationship with your customers, whether they are consumers or your business partners. Making that support readily available, relevant and accessible not only builds trust and brand loyalty, but also increases the likelihood that your customers will buy more of your products and services as well as recommend your company's offerings to their peers. Organizations also recognize that most customers and partners would prefer to resolve their first-line support issues themselves, provided they can do so quickly and easily. According to research and advisory firm, the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), the second most-popular preferred channel for product support after Google is self-service. In its 2018 TSIA Support Services Benchmark survey of its member organizations, the firm found that 80% of respondents are using self-service up from 61% of those surveyed in 2017. Freeing up support staff from continually dealing with the same sort of low-level queries over and over again means that your company can empower and focus those employees on identifying, fielding and resolving more out-of-the-ordinary and complex support cases.