Generative AI increased contact center productivity by 13.8% — study
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — Contact center agents with access to generative artificial intelligence (AI) are 13.8% more productive than those without.
According to a new study by the Stanford Digital Economy Laboratory and the MIT Sloan School of Management, agents who used AI assistance took a shorter time in handling individual chats, increased the number of chats they were able to handle per hour, and resolved more customer issues.
Productivity boosts were also seen among new hires and low-skilled workers, while the generative AI had “minimal impact” on experienced and highly skilled workers.
“Treated agents with two months of tenure perform just as well as untreated agents with over six months of tenure,” the research team said, arguing that there was evidence generative A.I. models “disseminate the potentially tacit knowledge of more able workers and help newer workers move down the experience curve.”
They also argued that their study showed AI assistance “improves customer sentiment, reduces requests for managerial intervention, and improves employee retention.”
“Our overall findings demonstrate that generative AI working alongside humans can have a significant positive impact on the productivity and retention of individual workers,” the researchers wrote.
The research — hailed as the “first real-world study of AI” — studied 3 million chats by 5,179 agents working for a Fortune 500 software firm that provides business process software.
