- Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, the two founders of Sierra, believe that AI agents could be the next technological frontier.
- Bret Taylor sees conversational AI becoming the primary form of interaction people will have with brands, not just for current trends like customer service, but for all aspects of the customer experience.
We keep hearing about the concept of customer experience, the idea that we can digitally improve a customer’s interaction with a brand. So far, the results remain vague.
Think of AI as a technology category
Sierra, a new company started by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, thinks AI agents could be the next technology frontier, much like websites or mobile apps before them: An essential digital asset for every company that can ultimately deliver on the promise of a digital customer experience.
Whether this is true or not, both founders fundamentally see AI agents as a new category of technology that offers a whole new way for customers to interact with brands to improve their overall experience.
“Our argument is very simple. We think conversational AI will become the dominant form of interaction people have with brands, not just for current trends like customer service, but for all aspects of the customer experience.” Taylor said.
This means that customers can enter free-form questions and requests into a search-style box, and the AI agent should be able to understand the request and take action by connecting to whatever transaction system is required. This can be tasks such as finding an order in an order management system or rescheduling a delivery in a scheduling system.
Also read: Sam Altman’s $7 trillion quest for network of AI chip factories
Make good use of tools
Taylor and Bavor acknowledge that connecting to these systems is not always easy, especially if they are old.But most of the CIOs they spoke to said they had built apis to connect these older systems, making it easier for Sierra to communicate with them.
