The AI Revolution Your Customers Actually Want (And How to Lead It)
Here's what excites me about where AI is actually heading: we have a real opportunity to build something better for our customers.
Instead of accepting that some tech giant will inevitably own our customer relationships, we can create AI experiences that truly serve our businesses and delight our users.
Tim O'Reilly just dropped some serious wisdom about why the current "winner-takes-all" AI narrative is fundamentally flawed. Instead of rushing to crown the next Google, we should be building what he calls an "architecture of participation" – where AI actually cooperates instead of colonizes.
Key takeaways for CX leaders:
The companies winning aren't the ones with the biggest AI models – they're the ones creating ecosystems where specialized providers can build AI interfaces to their own content. Think protocols, not platforms.
Your move as a CX executive: Stop waiting for someone else's AI to save you. Start building your own "AI face" for customers now. Microsoft's NLWeb, Anthropic's Model Context Protocol, and Google's A2A are showing us the way forward – cooperative AI that actually serves your business, not just harvests your data.
The uncomfortable reality? Most companies still can't offer their customers an AI-powered experience worth talking about. While you're debating which AI vendor to bet on, your competitors are already building conversational interfaces that make YOUR website feel like a relic.
Time to stop being someone else's colonial domain and start participating in the real AI revolution.
Credit to Tim O'Reilly for the wake-up call we all needed: https://www.oreilly.com/radar/an-architecture-of-participation-for-ai/
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