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Future AI: Predicting your needs and guiding your actions (Includes interview)

Artificial intelligence is being used increasingly by companies of all sizes to understand user behavior. Moreover, based on user actions AI can contextually guide customers on how to use the tool, or offer them some sort of solution. For sales and customer reps, this level of insight can help provide a better user experience.

The company WalkMe has a vision is that AI will understand user needs so that people no longer need to learn how to navigate any software or website. Instead, AI will predict people’s needs and guide them through what we need to do.

To achieve this goal, WalkMe has designed an AI-powered solution that can sit on top of any SaaS/web-based system to analyze, predict and take action on user behavior to improve customer retention.

To discover more, Digital Journal spoke with Omer Rabin, who is the Managing Director, WalkMe Growth Edition.

Digital Journal: How important is AI becoming for businesses?

Omer Rabin: AI is arguably one of the hottest areas of investment and growth for businesses of all sizes and industries around the world today. It’s easy to see why when you think about the benefits that AI can deliver to augment the way we work. Whether it’s through more intelligent automation to complete previously tedious and time-intensive tasks in a fraction of the time, or processing billions of data points in minutes to generate business insights, AI can deliver immense value to support an organization’s objectives and growth.

As business competition continues to intensify and as services are being commoditized, AI is providing companies with the ability to grow by optimizing processes and decision making – making them significantly more competitive in the marketplace.

DJ: Is AI important for all business sectors?

Rabin: Yes, AI is becoming increasingly important for businesses of all sizes and industries around the world. At WalkMe, we see companies using AI in two different ways. The first is to improve the digital employee experience, by identifying adoption issues when using enterprise software. Using our AI, companies can then contextually guide and engage them on how to use a particular system like a pro – even if they’ve never interacted with it before, by giving them exactly the right information that they need, when they need it.

When you think about how much money businesses are investing in IT – according to analyst firm Gartner, global IT spending is expected to reach $3.7 trillion this year – it makes sense to invest in solutions that can maximize user adoption, while increasing efficiency and return on investment.

The second way that AI is used is for fast-growing companies that want to better understand their customers and guide them on how to use their system or website more effectively in real-time. By understanding the user experience, again AI can assist in addressing the right issues at the right time, which is an critical aspect to achieving customer retention and growth.

At WalkMe, we work with over 1,500 companies worldwide in sectors ranging from finance, healthcare, e-commerce, manufacturing and many others to help them understand a user’s behaviors when interacting with any business software, website and mobile application.

DJ: What’s driving the growth in AI?

Rabin: We see several key forces driving the growth in AI across businesses today. Firstly, employees today are changing jobs more frequently than in previous generations, and they are exposed to an even wider set of technologies than ever before – whether that’s in the workplace or in their personal life. People today not only have a diverse digital IQ, but are so overwhelmed with technologies that it’s unrealistic that they will memorize how to use them.

Secondly, the technology itself is constantly changing. In the past, software updates would be predictable, but now thanks to the cloud, such updates can be made overnight. Think of the many modifications that Facebook has made to its layout over the years, for example, where the user experience has radically changed overnight. As consumers, we simply need to identify and adapt to these updates.

Finally, AI has continued to become more sophisticated over the last few years, and this means that more organizations are exploring how it can be used to support their business goals – whether it’s in increasing the quantity and quality of sales leads, providing a more personalized customer experience, or other metrics surrounding business performance and growth.

DJ: How can companies use AI to understand user behavior?

Rabin: At WalkMe, we aggregate hundreds of cues and parameters about how a company’s users – whether they’re employees or end customers – are using a system. This allows the organization to predict the intentions and future behaviors of their customers to engage with them at precisely at the right moment. We offer highly customized and specific step-by-step guidance when someone needs help navigating through a system, and can improve the user experience by also identifying common pitfalls over time.

By using AI to understand user behavior, organizations have a complete solution for the entire user lifecycle – from their first login to the system through to onboarding, feature adoption, retention and expansion. Since we have insights at every step of the user journey, we can minimize customer churn and help businesses improve their relationships with their customers.

DJ: Which types of companies or job roles might this appeal to most?

Rabin: We see two types of companies benefiting from the AI that we provide. The first is for organizations that want to maximize their technology investments – whether it’s in their sales or marketing software, HR application, or other solution. We focus on delivering insights to the organization on how employees are using these tools, so that they can anticipate their needs and improve user adoption.

The second type of company we focus on is customer-centric software or web-based companies, who want to see greater retention of their applications. Particularly for fast-growing organizations, AI can simplify the process of ensuring that customers can realize value from their products, and minimize any customer flight risks.

DJ: What are the benefits of this type of AI to the consumer?

Rabin: Consumers are increasingly expecting more personalized experiences in all aspects of their lives – and technology is no exception. If you’ve never used a system before and you’re unsure of what to do, you’ll either look up the answer online, ask a colleague, or simply abandon the application altogether. None of those options are ideal or effective.

Now imagine if AI understood your preferences and behaviors, so you could easily navigate through the system based on exactly what you need to do. You no longer to waste time within the system – it’s all incredibly easy and intuitive.

DJ: What is WalkMe’s vision for AI?

Rabin: Our vision is that in the future, software will adapt to users’ needs, rather than users needing to adapt to the software. Basically this means that thanks to artificial intelligence, technology will have the data to anticipate users’ behaviors, actions and inactions so that it can always contextually guide and engage them on how to use a system. Whether it’s business software, a consumer-facing website, or a mobile app, we imagine that the user-software relationship to more intuitive and predictive than what it is today.

DJ: How is WalkMe working to make this happen?

Rabin: WalkMe continues to invest significantly in R&D to enhance the user experience, and improve user adoption. In the past we’ve acquired two companies – one in visual analytics and one in mobile-based in-app engagement – to expand our platform’s AI features.

Most recently, we’ve created a Center of Excellence, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, so that our fast-growing customers will benefit from dedicated product, sales and customer success teams with best practices on how to enhance the customer experience.

Finally, we continue to invest in top talent around the globe that support our vision. We have over 600 employees around the world in the U.S., Israel, Europe and Asia Pacific, and we’re committed to helping organizations of all sizes and industries use AI to accelerate their business growth.

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Written By

Dr. Tim Sandle is Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for science news. Tim specializes in science, technology, environmental, business, and health journalism. He is additionally a practising microbiologist; and an author. He is also interested in history, politics and current affairs.

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