Dial A for AI: Twilio Announces AI Expansion

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The Gist

AI expansion. Twilio introduces generative tools and enhanced features.
Democratized predictions. Twilio’s CustomerAI empowers marketers to enhance engagement.
Voice insights. New tool transforms unstructured voice data into actionable insights.

Twilio, a provider of cloud communications platforms, will announce new offerings encompassing a variety of predictive and generative AI tools today during its SIGNAL 2023 conference.

Katrina Wong, VP of marketing at Twilio, shared an exclusive interview with CMSWire on the company’s latest foray into artificial intelligence with CustomerAI, its customer engagement platform.

Let’s take a look at some of the new enhanced features.

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CustomerAI Predictions: Democratizing AI for Marketers

Amidst today’s competitive market dynamics, there’s a growing emphasis on leveraging AI and machine learning (ML) to understand and predict future customer behavior. However, the intricacy of such models often demands a confluence of real-time data and specialized data science knowledge.

Twilio’s latest feature, CustomerAI Predictions, will empower marketers, even those without an extensive technical background, to swiftly pinpoint and engage specific customer segments, according to Wong. With this tool, they can initiate customer pathways and customize experiences across various channels, relying on metrics such as a customer’s lifetime value, propensity to buy or discontinue a service and more. A key component of its efficiency is the integration of real-time data from Segment, a customer data platform Twilio acquired in 2020.

“What that means is, as a marketer, you can come in and say, I want to know the propensity to buy for a particular product, and through AI and the use of data, we’ve made it accessible for the end user,” Wong said. “Which is pretty powerful, because up until this point, most marketers were working with data science teams — and we will always need to work with data science teams — but we’ve made it very accessible to run some out-of-box predictions, as well as custom predictions.”

Related Article: A Comprehensive Guide to Communications Platform-as- a-Service (CPaaS)

Voice Intelligence: Transforming Unstructured Call Data into Actionable Insights

As call volumes continue to rise, voice remains an essential channel for customer service. Yet, many companies face challenges in deciphering and learning from these calls due to the unstructured nature of voice data, Twilio officials contend.

Enter Voice Intelligence, a tool that utilizes transcription and language operations to apply conversational speech recognition, providing insights from voice interactions. By leveraging Natural Language Understanding (NLU), the tool can pinpoint and report on various trends, including prevalent feedback, insights into competitors and potential compliance risks. Further, for Twilio Flex and Voice clientele, there’s a feature to ensure regulatory compliance by redacting personal information automatically.

Generative Email, Automated Journeys and Enhanced Flex Tools

Building upon existing AI features in Twilio Engage, such as Smart Headlines, Smart Image Generator, and Smart Buttons, Twilio is set to introduce several new tools and capabilities:

CustomerAI Generative Email. This will enable users to transform simple text prompts into HTML, streamlining email creation.
CustomerAI Generative Journeys. By specifying the campaign type, audience and desired channels, Twilio Engage will utilize generative AI to automatically design the customer journey. “I can actually have CustomerAI generate a journey with all the different steps to engage the customer in a way that they want to be engaged,” Wong said.
CustomerAI Agent Assist for Twilio Flex. Flex users can take advantage of this tool that provides contact center agents with AI-generated recommendations for “next best actions” tailored to individual customers. It will also offer AI-driven summaries to help agents conclude calls.

Twilio Launches Flex Unify, Segment B2B and Zero Copy for Enhanced AI and Data Integration

Twilio has also unveiled a suite of new offerings geared toward optimizing AI and data integration. With the impending general-availability launch of Flex Unify, agents get access to detailed customer profiles through Segment. The introduction of Twilio’s Segment B2B Edition is coupled with the Zero Copy Architecture in partnership with Databricks and Snowflake.

Here are some more details:

Twilio Flex Unify. Previewed today with a first look at SIGNAL, and currently in beta, this feature will provide agents with real-time access to Segment’s customer profile data, promoting personalized interactions.
Twilio’s Segment B2B Edition with Linked Profiles. Allows businesses to integrate diverse data sets, such as company accounts and subscriptions, creating a comprehensive customer data graph and resulting in enhanced AI training, advanced segmentation and personalized recommendations across various channels.

Twilio’s Zero Copy Architecture. Introduced in collaboration with Databricks and Snowflake to enhance data infrastructure for AI-readiness, it encompasses several features:

Bypasses the need for data copying and redundant ETL jobs.
Offers direct query processing on data platforms and warehouses.
Simplifies data pipeline creation and maintenance.
Provides an alternative method for data ingestion and access within Twilio’s CDP.
Facilitates data sharing technology for AI models in warehouses, streamlining activation in subsequent applications.
Speeds up customer data onboarding into Twilio Engage and Twilio Flex.

Twilio Serves Up AI Ingredients

Twilio is also unveiling AI Nutrition Facts Labels for its CustomerAI products — designed to give users clear insight into the AI model’s privacy settings and design elements using a format reminiscent of traditional food nutrition labels.

“Think of it almost as a nutritional label, but we’re going to provide a lot of transparency, like what goes into our AI to help you calculate, predict and generate these next best actions,” Wong said. “We’re pretty excited about that. We’ve given a preview to some of our customers and so there’s been so much excitement — I can’t wait to hear the market reaction to it.”

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