Tammas Ryan, Head of Customer Service at Edrolo: “The disruption caused by AI is likely to impact offshore customer service operations”

When so much talk about AI is vague and even threatening, it’s refreshing to hear how Edrolo put it to practical use. “We used an AI model called Whisper to automatically caption over 10,000 hours of our video content,” said Tammas Ryan, Edrolo’s Head of Customer Service.

“We went from a slow, costly manual captioning process to rolling out instantaneous, automated captioning across our entire library of resources. It dramatically improved accessibility for more than 200,000 students across [Australia].”

For those unfamiliar with Edrolo, it aims to give teachers tech-enabled tools and resources that both help students learn and make those teachers happier by removing some of their burden. That means delivering insights, too, and naturally AI can come into its own here.

But, as Tam was quick to point out in our interview, AI comes with downsides. “The disruption caused by AI is likely to impact offshore customer service operations, as low-level queries become initially triaged and resolved through increasingly capable AI systems, reducing the need for human intervention in certain cases.”

And it could also reduce wages for senior CX professionals, he points out, even if there is “immense potential for AI to augment human capabilities”.

So will you be replaced by an AI bot? Enhanced by one? And how will that affect the customer experience, for students, teachers and everyone else? There’s only one way to find out: keep reading!

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Could you please introduce yourself to our audience? What motivated you to pursue a career in customer experience, and how did you embark on your journey in this field?

My path into the world of customer experience and education technology was largely shaped by my upbringing in a family of academics. But it was my first-hand experiences with technology in school that really opened my eyes. Back in the 90s as a kid, I got to use laptops and classroom tech that most students didn’t have access to at that time, and I quickly realised how big an advantage – or disadvantage – having that comfort level with technology could be. 

It made me recognise that those formative school years, and how well you can leverage the latest learning tools, can totally shape someone’s future opportunities in life. This realisation motivated me to pursue a career centred around the intersection of technology and education. 

At university, I worked on integrating technology into learning environments to facilitate blended teaching and learning models. After graduating, I worked at Google in their internal technical support team and gained an appreciation for the scale of change made possible by careful product design that focuses on simplicity and usability. 

Eventually, my passion for EdTech led me to my current role at a startup that provides online and physical educational resources to over 1,100 schools across Australia. Throughout this journey, I’ve been motivated by the belief that thoughtfully designed educational technology can tear down barriers and empower people from all backgrounds to reach their full potential.

How do you ready yourself for an AI-driven landscape as a customer-focused leader? What new skills do you need?

Experimentation is key – and it applies beyond just the customer experience realm. The capabilities are evolving at such a speed, that the only way to truly grasp its progression is to constantly experiment with new tools and technologies. Continually try connecting them to real-world use cases, both personal and professional. That hands-on approach will give you a much better understanding of AI’s potential impact on your business and customers.

The skill you’ll need most is an insatiable curiosity and willingness to get your hands dirty with the latest AI capabilities. Don’t just read about it – carve our time to actually use the tech and see how it could reshape your operations and relationships. Embedding the mindset of continual testing and learning is crucial for leaders looking to thrive in this AI-driven landscape.

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Could you share some of your most noteworthy accomplishments that you take particular pride in?

One accomplishment I’m particularly proud of is our early adoption of cutting-edge AI captioning technology. We used an AI model called Whisper to automatically caption over 10,000 hours of our video content.

This was a game-changer for us. We went from a slow, costly manual captioning process to rolling out instantaneous, automated captioning across our entire library of resources. It dramatically improved accessibility for more than 200,000 students across the country.

Being an early mover in high-quality AI captioning gave us a competitive advantage as well. We were able to leverage advanced AI to greatly enhance the student experience while realising major cost and efficiency gains. This was my first real taste of how rapidly evolving AI capabilities can completely transform operations when embraced at the right time.

What are your thoughts on the escalating integration of AI in customer experience and its potential influence on the future of customer service at large?

The customer experience landscape will rapidly transform with the integration of artificial intelligence. The field is evolving at an unprecedented pace, with a new AI research paper published every six minutes. Given this pace of development, it’s tough to pin down exactly where things are headed in the short term. But if you zoom out and look at the big-picture trends, the trajectory is crystal clear.

Huge investments are pouring into AI research and development, fueling a surge of progress. Where money flows, progress follows. Algorithmic breakthroughs continue to decrease the cost per token, and hardware improvements are compounding this trend. Between those two forces, AI capabilities just keep expanding while the costs continue to shrink.

At least in the near future, AI has immense potential to be a force multiplier across the entire customer experience spectrum. Conversational AI assistants will provide instant, 24/7 support by answering common enquiries and triaging complex issues. AI-powered analytics will deliver granular customer insights which were previously hidden and predictive modelling will allow us to forecast with ever greater accuracy. In the medium term, personalisation will allow us to create uniquely tailored user journeys.

In the near term, there is immense potential for AI to augment human capabilities. Early studies indicate that the most profound effects of this augmentation are likely to be observed among early-career or less experienced workers. AI could enable these individuals to rapidly perform at medium to high-level standards, potentially putting downward pressure on senior customer experience wages. Conversely, this technology could also help address emerging skills shortages by rapidly upskilling the workforce.

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Do you anticipate any significant disruptions in customer service technology for 2024? If so, what are those disruptions and why?

In 2023 agentic AI is likely to be the next major disruptive force in customer service. AI systems will evolve from providing RAG-based responses based on knowledge bases (where most of the industry is at the moment), to possessing the capability to take actions on behalf of users via APIs.

As we make progress in reducing hallucinations and enhancing control mechanisms over LLMs, their capabilities will continue expanding. Before reaching that level of autonomy, I expect a transitional phase, where individual customer service agents will oversee fleets of AI assistants resolving queries, stepping in to take over when needed in a targeted way.

The disruption caused by AI is likely to impact offshore customer service operations, as low-level queries become initially triaged and resolved through increasingly capable AI systems, reducing the need for human intervention in certain cases.