For all the debate around it, we all remember the infamous (sic) statement attributed in the 1940s to Thomas J Watson Jr., the then head of affairs at IBM. It is said that he said, "there world market for computers is five". Maybe it was related to just a particular type of machines or whatever it may be. In the early years of the Internet, Newsweek carried an article suggesting, Internet being, wait a moment, Baloney!
Todays, there is a very interesting debate between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg about the threat of Artificial Intelligence or AI. These are people who have been key contributors to the growth of the Millenial Development. And there's no way I can take away an iota of credit away from this discussion. It's very engaging! And I am keenly following this.
Having said that, threat of Artificial Intelligence or not, the reality is written on the wall. Artificial Intelligence is the future. Automation will be the next big thing. And let's not be scared, typists went out of jobs when the personal computer came. But what about the new opportunities that computing and the connected internet created for our economy and humanity in general.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning or Automation, whatever we may call these, are probably the next big inflection in our world. And let's warm up to it. I again feel that many industry pundits or analysts are talking about chat-bots being a $1B market in the next 3-4 years are probably being way too (I would add many more Os to the too) conservative.
Let's just think, even if AI automated 30% (grossly conservative by my estimates) of calls or emails being received by call centers. We are talking of 30% of a $400B or $120B global market by 2022. That's a huge chunk. So let's be prepared for it.
On a personal fron, Phonon developed Click-to-Call™ in the period 2008-2010. Click-to-Call as a services is a defacto standard in the customer service industry today. Lifecycle for technology is short and getting ever compressed. We've got to be #ReadyFor2020! And Phonon's working towards Phonon 2.0 at a feverish pace.
We've got some interesting products lined up and watch-out for some announcements later this week! In the meantime, here's a video with a sneak preview for what's in store.
