Blog | 16 February 2023
Artificial intelligence – an increasingly important part of websites and intranets
In this post, the blog is hosted by Alexander Gustafsson. Alexander has been awarded Sitevision Most Valuable Professional three years in a row. And now he's going to talk AI.
It has escaped few that artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is a hotter topic than ever. From self-driving cars and drones to chats and deepfakes.
I recently published a post on LinkedIn about how artificial intelligence will probably become more involved in the writing process and become a conscious or unconscious part of the texts we consume, such as social media posts or news articles. The plot of the post was that the entire post was written by artificial intelligence, which was given the simple instruction to “Write an article in Swedish about how AI will write all texts in the future.”
We have known for a long time that companies such as Tesla use advanced artificial intelligence to make their cars self-driving, and as early as 2017, Apple began including Apple Neural Engine in the iPhone, among other things, which means you have artificial intelligence in your pocket wherever you go. It is the Apple Neural Engine that allows you to take great photos, quickly find all photos featuring a specific person, approve payments with your face via FaceID, and, of course, talk to Siri.
We also recently saw articles about how ChatGPT's progress caused “Code Red” at Google, as services like ChatGPT could be a threat to the traditional search engine because they give us a well-formulated answer to the visitor's question instead of a list of links like Google shows today.
Microsoft has also already integrated OpenAI (of which ChatGPT is a part) into its Bing search engine and Edge browser. With AI integrated directly into the browser, you can, for example, quickly get a summary of the page or document you are currently reading, help with writing a post on LinkedIn, and much more.
However, earlier this week we saw proof that we are still in the early stages of AI support and that, for the time being, we must review and evaluate the results we get from AI. Google recently announced its AI chatbot called Bard. Unfortunately, the presentation was less than successful, as Bard displayed factual errors in its first demo.
However, I have long wondered how artificial intelligence can help us in our work to create the best digital workplace or the best customer journey on the website.
In 2017, I conducted a proof of concept (POC) together with a customer where we trained AI on the website's content. The aim was to create a smarter, more user-friendly alternative to the website's search engine, and the idea was to develop a new type of FAQ function that could interpret visitors' questions and refer them to the right answers. Unfortunately, this proof of concept was never launched as a finished feature, mainly because the artificial intelligence was not yet good enough for us to be satisfied with the result, especially in the Swedish language.
Since 2017, a lot has happened in the world of AI, and many of the web solutions we deliver today in the form of intranets or websites often have one or more features that use artificial intelligence. These include recommendations based on visitor patterns, purchasing patterns, and seasons, as well as tools such as automatic translation into other languages and search engine optimisation.
The big question is instead what the next step is and how the customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) will change in the future based on the advancement of artificial intelligence in various forms.
If services such as ChatGPT and Bard become more common, where the user experience is that you ask a question and immediately receive a formulated and personalised answer, instead of a link to a page, then sooner or later the user will expect the same interaction on the organisation's website and intranet.
For example, if an employee wonders how vacation days are affected by parental leave, they currently have to look up the page about vacation days on the intranet and read about how it might affect them. What an employee will expect is to be able to simply ask the intranet, “I've taken 10 days of parental leave this year, how will that affect my vacation days?” The expected response is a personalised and well-formulated answer, as if you were conversing with someone from the payroll department. An AI that has learned the employee handbook, knows who is asking the question, and can also view and refer to data from the payroll system.
By allowing artificial intelligence to train on internal data such as visitor patterns, customer data, and sales data, websites will undoubtedly be able to offer a new type of personalisation and experience where text, images, and offers are tailored to you. The user experience will probably consist of artificial intelligence knowing what you want, when you want it, and how you want it without you having to ask the question yourself. This is based solely on previous patterns from you and other customers.
Out of pure curiosity, I have already conducted a POC where OpenAI is integrated directly into Sitevision. The first version focuses primarily on helping editors write accurate texts, but the integration could help users or visitors in a variety of ways.
Consid currently has an innovation project where AI and its potential are of interest, and where internal and external data are used to optimise the range and product offering in e-commerce. For example, it takes into account factors such as sales trends, stock availability, events, seasons, and weather when suggesting purchases. This, in turn, optimises sales and reduces waste and environmental impact.
We are already seeing artificial intelligence that can generate different types of product images. Soon, you will be greeted by product images in e-commerce that are tailored to you, with colors you like and inspiration from product images of your previous purchases. An example of this today is how the streaming service Netflix uses different cover images and previews for the same series and movies for different people, all based on your history in your profile.
Finally, I also asked my colleague Patrik Zetterström, one of Sweden's leading AI experts, how he thinks websites will be affected by artificial intelligence in the coming years.
“I believe editors will benefit more from AI to efficiently create relevant and attractive content. They can get help with wording and correcting texts with appropriate images in an elegant layout.”
I also took the opportunity to ask the same question to Johan Albertsson, co-founder of the AI company Rek.ai, with whom we collaborate extensively in our delivery of intranets and websites.
“I believe that we will be amazed time and time again by the huge strides AI will make in the coming years. So far, AI has often been developed as individual puzzle pieces, but it is when we combine the pieces that we will see truly major paradigm shifts.”
How do you think AI will affect your work and the users of your website and intranet? Are you curious about how we could implement AI on your website, intranet, or similar?
Please don't hesitate to contact me!
