back to article AI bills can blow out by 1000 percent: Gartner

Organizations adopting AI need to learn how to manage the emotional and monetary costs the tech creates, while also worrying about capturing productivity benefits, according to analyst firm Gartner. The firm offered that opinion today in Australia where it kicked off the first of its flagship Symposium events for the year with …

  1. Lost in Cyberspace

    Customer service is not a place for AI

    People are there for when the pre-programmed bits aren't enough to sort the issue automatically. Someone takes over, bends or breaks the 'rules', sorts the problem and makes the customer happy. I see two common outcomes for replacing people with AI, in customer service and tech support:

    1. It gives the same answers already available on the FAQ pages, and the same useless options as the automated phone support.

    2. It gives the wrong answers.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

      That's not entirely true. It is possible to have an AI analyse the issue, categorise it so it can be handled by the right people and even propose a draft answer - they key lies in the fact that the first 'L' in 'LLM' stands for language.

      However much that speeds up customer service, it should not be deemed "intelligent"- it's more a somewhat improved Bayesian filter (that uses 10x as much energy and you pay license fees for) that does some prep work. To get it right you still need a human in the chain, preferably one with a working brain who has been instructed well (both elements representing the real challenge IMHO :) ).

      1. Roj Blake Silver badge
        Headmaster

        Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

        It's the second L that stands for language.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

          Thanks for picking that up. Serves me right for posting on a Monday, especially before coffee :).

          1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

            Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

            AI would have picked that up by saying the third "L" stands for "Language"*. That's the "L" of using AI.

            * Referencing a thread on this forum where AI was asked how many "R"'s are in "strawberry". It couldn't agree on whether it was 1 or 2 duh.

      2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

        AI cannot analyse anything, in any sense. It has no understanding whatsoever.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

          Like first line support then?

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

        Yeah but I wouldn't deem first line support to be "intelligent" either...it exists to filter out the low hanging fruit to prevent second and third line being overwhelmed, first line shouldn't be troubleshooting unknown issues...they should be filtering out known problems and closing the straight forward tickets down to allow line 2 and line 3 the space they need to be able to troubleshoot more complex and more specific issues.

        By the time a ticket reaches line 3 (if it even gets there) there should be plenty of information from first line describing the problem (as accurately as possible), the outcome of trying known fixes, then from second line, some more advanced troubleshooting and diagnostic collection (based on known, but not very common issues that can't be fixed with simple instructions to the customer) and steps to recreate the problem (if possible).

        Line one isn't there to think deeply about a problem, they are there to filter out the obvious stuff and act as a conduit through which a customers issue can be interpreted and translated into something more technical for the next lines to roll with.

        First line are your "bobbies on the beat" as it were. First on scene, taking notes, collecting witness statements etc etc...they aren't there to solve the crime, unless the evidence is overwhelming and on the spot collar can be made.

      4. Efer Brick

        Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

        I thought it was L for Leather

    2. Robert Grant

      Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

      > People are there for when the pre-programmed bits aren't enough to sort the issue automatically

      Well, yes. But that doesn't mean some of those non-automatic things couldn't be automated. It's just that the current systems haven't automated them. There'll be some things that aren't automated but could be, and some that aren't automated and (probably) can't be. The former exists.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

      I can't see AI replacing second or third line support at this point in time simply because the people logging tickets don't always understand the problem they have, they usually describe the symptoms when logging a ticket and not the problem...however, I can see AI replacing first line support people because first line is simply about information gathering rather than actual troubleshooting for the most part...the role of first line is to either provide a simple fix (if it is a known issue or fits in with the documentation of the product) or gather more information before escalating the ticket...crucially their job is about getting a ticket logged and ensuring there is appropriate information against the ticket to allow the next line to take over and provide enough information for a manager to be able to assign the ticket to an appropriate second or third line tech.

      Having an AI at first line to log a ticket, acknowledge the customer issue and ask appropriate questions to gather further information or provide a link to instructions in online product documentation seems pretty straight forward to me.

      Even if you don't get rid of first line entirely, you can probably cut the numbers with an AI in play simply because it could save a lot of time and effort on the part of your first line guys...AI in effect becoming line 0.5 in your support structure...this has probably been going on for a long time without LLMs to be fair...LLMs just improve on already existing methods and make the experience more conversational rather than just following a maze of menus on a phone system / website.

    4. Alumoi Silver badge

      Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

      Au contraire, AI is the best thing that happened to customer service. You can have the suckers tied up for hours until they give up.

      After all, we've tried cutting up the support people, outsorced it to some third world country, force the suckers to download and install all kind of apps, and they still try getting in touch with us.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

        Outsourcing only exists to get around the pesky living expenses and high wage problem in first world countries...fortunately, the third world countries we outsourced to for years are getting wise to it. Particularly India where higher wages in line with western pay packets are being demanded.

        I'm quite excited, because it means those of us in the West that have been locked out purely on cost will be able to start competing on quality and deliverables again.

        1. Alumoi Silver badge

          Re: Customer service is not a place for AI

          Do you really think so? There's some new technology around, called AI or something, that is even cheaper than outsourcing.

  2. Kicksec.io

    AI what?!?!

    These guys are analysts and should be smarter than to be talking about "AI reducing workload", when they are simply referring to Large Language models, it AI does not equal an LLM! But for investors thats all they need to know for the hype train to keep on chugging along.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AI what?!?!

      Investors don't see the world from ground level like you, they see the world as a bigger picture...the massive investment in "AI" has nothing to do with the technology specifically being world changing in and of itself...it's because it's one of the final pieces in the overall puzzle.

      LLMs standalone are not amazing...but if you give them sensors, real time data, feedback etc they suddenly become very capable...a Diesel engine by itself is pretty worthless, you have to team it up with a drive chain, chassis, some seats and a steering wheel for it be useful...the same thing applies to LLMs.

      We've long been able to use machines to sense the environment, gather data and crunch it...but we've never been able to speak to them about those sensors, data and results before...or been able to pass the data and results into a model for immediate feedback.

      It doesn't actually matter if the models are precise either...how many times have you been asked for a "rough ballpark figure" in order to help someone make a decision? Probably more often than you've been asked for an exact figure...rough estimates and summaries are usually good enough day to day to make decisions...

  3. Howard Sway Silver badge

    "It is really easy to waste money on generative AI"

    Would have loved to have seen the look on the faces of all the big execs there when the Gartner guy said that. Bet they were all thinking "But you told us last year we had to invest a fortune in it! And it was a complete waste of money!".

    1. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

      Re: "It is really easy to waste money on generative AI"

      To quote a great sage of our time, "It takes two to lie, Marge, one to lie and one to believe it."

  4. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

    Vendor price hikes are one reason for such blowouts.

    Especially given that right now AI is being charged as a loss leader. It's going to take a while before pricing reflects costs, but it'll happen eventually.

  5. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

    > Organizations adopting AI need to learn how to manage the emotional and monetary costs the tech creates, while also worrying about capturing productivity benefits, according to analyst firm Gartner.

    This has inspired me to come up with the following marketing slogan for Gen AI: "GEN AI: It's expensive and people hate it, but at least you'll get bad results!"

    1. Androgynous Cow Herd

      thanks

      now making a T-shirt of that one!

  6. Brave Coward

    No, seriously?

    So one needs to attend an Australian's symposium to be told by a Gartner's 'distinguished VP analyst' that 'orgs need to learn when search will suffice instead of using AI for simple queries'?

    WTF?

    Confirms me in the idea that at least half of what is regarded nowadays as 'economic activity' (symposiums, Gartner and the likes, not even to mention LLM) is just sheer and plain bullshit.

    1. Androgynous Cow Herd

      Re: No, seriously?

      Comparing Gartner to common bullshit is denigrating the value of bullshit.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No one got fired for choosing IBM

    >The more experienced worker, the analysts suggested, may later come to resent AI if it means a new hire quickly attains the same level as the veteran.

    Fortunately IBM is here with a thoroughly field tested solution to the veteran problem.

  8. s. pam
    Mushroom

    Screw AI, use OpenSearch (or other suitable engines)

    Firstly I hope the intelligence of El Reg readers knows that there's nothing intelligent with AI -- LLM's are what it should be called at best. Crunching through corpus' of data for patterns is at best an optimistic "new" use for search, so the next CIO/CTO that comes my way demanding AI project "just because we gotta have an AI project" gets it right between the eyes!

  9. Ian Johnston Silver badge

    Does Gartner pay El Reg for these articles?

  10. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
    Boffin

    Plus ca change...

    This has been true of pretty much every pay-per-use technology right back to early bureau mainframe days.

    I made some good money in the early '90s configuring routers to prevent three-dimensional ISDN bills for dial-on-demand links between sites, and I'm sure we all have tales of badly-written database searches consuming all available resources for several days.

    As the article says, this was very prevalent in the early days of cloud services, too.

    GJC

    1. spacecadet66 Bronze badge

      Re: Plus ca change...

      The difference is that ISDN, databases, and The Cloud (TM) are all fit for the purpose for which they were invented.

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