Qualtrics X4 Summit Proves We Got It Right
Qualtrics X4 Summit finished last week and one of the most exciting things introduced were ‘experience agents’. Zig Serfin, CEO of Qualtrics, made the announcement about Qualtric’s new AI features that understand context, preferences, and journey touch points—and that can take action in real-time on concerns that people have. Bravo! Well done Qualtrics. This is exactly what experience management needs, and, if I may, exactly what I described in 2017 in The Collaboratives as the future of channel strategy.
The future is here. I know, it sounds like I’m bragging. Probably because I am. In 2015, I wrote the book about digital context (now simply called context). In 2017, the Stone Mantel team started describing exactly the types of solutions that Qualtrics is now creating. Things are unfolding exactly the way that our Collaboratives predicted they would.
No doubt the experience agents that Qualtrics has started launching will evolve over time. No doubt they will become more intelligent and more capable. Along the way there will be snafus, but this is to be expected. These tools need to learn. If you are at all interested in what the near future looks like for gen AI and more specifically for Qualtrics’ experience agents, check out the HBR article that Joe Pine and I wrote in 2023. Not that either of us have anything to do with what Qualtrics is cooking up. Only that our track record for predicting what customers want from technology is in excellent form.
You will see the separation of experiences into four categories: Stupid (we were not allowed to use that word in the HBR article and substituted with Not Smart), Dumb (again, we weren’t allowed to use this obvious word), Smart, and Genius. No one should be creating stupid experiences, but sometimes technology fails us. Dumb experiences (called No-data Experiences) are not bad, they are just not intelligent. And there’s a huge difference between smart and genius experiences.
Some of you are likely starting to wonder about the implications of gen AI for your jobs or your employee’s jobs—or for your call center people. I just wrote about the implications on Substack, in article called ‘The Role of People in a Highly Intelligent, Highly Customized World.’ It’s time for you to retool. It just is.
For three years now I’ve been arguing that experience strategists need to lead companies in developing a strategic point of view about the future needs of customers. To me, when I see what Qualtrics is producing, it seems so obvious and I hope you see it too. Your company no longer needs you to lead the charge on traditional design thinking, persona development, journey mapping, etc. Those these tools are useful, but it is only a matter of time before gen AI will do a better job of creating journey maps than you can. However, when AI takes over the traditional roles of experience managers and can automatically be tuned to express empathy, something else will happen.
The knowledge that AI tools—and all tech companies will be impacted—will create will feel like sameness. When all intelligent answers and solutions begin to feel the same, the company will lose value. The term for sameness in knowledge is ‘hegemony.’ For many of you, this term may not be familiar but give it five to seven years. You will see all kinds of people talking about AI hegemony.
The way to overcome AI hegemony, and to increase the value of people’s wisdom, is through having a strategic point of view about the near future needs of customers. I lay out parts of my argument for this in my new book, To Be Compelling Requires a Strategic Point of View. This is what you need to be focused on now so that five years from now, your company is way ahead of the game.
Last thought:
Staying ahead of the game is exactly what Stone Mantel has been about for 20 years. In celebration of our 20 year anniversary, I will be leading a Masterclass on Experience Strategy starting April 3 and you are invited to participate. Missed the first session? Don’t fret! You can join in any time, and you can sign up here! When it asks who invited you just write in my name. YOU are invited. By me.
If you want to increase your value to your company, join our Collaboratives or engage Stone Mantel on a project.
