Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the way enterprises conduct business, from managing supply chains to optimizing product development. But one of GenAI’s most profound impacts has been powering a new generation of customer and employee experiences. With its ability to process massive troves of data, both structured and unstructured, from multiple inputs, GenAI empowers enterprises to create highly personalized experiences that wow customers and help improve productivity for employees.

However, providing these experiences requires a network that can rapidly move unprecedented quantities of data to and from the edge, where these experiences are taking place with little room for latency. Such demands are putting pressure on CIOs and CISOs to upgrade their IT infrastructure and talent for the GenAI age.

“GenAI is top of mind for CIOs everywhere because they see it as a disruptive technology that will be transformative for both customer and employee experiences,” says Amit Verma, Chief Technical Officer, Comcast Business. “Right now, these CIOs are looking at all the use cases coming from their business units and deciding which ones to prioritize, and a lot of that depends on their own data architecture.”

Verma’s observation is borne out by the research. According to IDC’s 2023 GenAI Awareness, Readiness, and Commitment Survey, 83% of IT leaders believe that using GenAI models to leverage their own business’ data will give them a significant advantage over competitors, with improved customer and user experience as the primary benefit. And 40% of enterprises expect that GenAI will impact network and connectivity strategies using capabilities that target and improve the customer experience.

Resulting experiences could be faster, smarter and personalized in a way that is unrecognizable from what could be done with earlier technologies.

Supporting experiences at the edge

One common experience GenAI is already transforming is drive-through ordering. In recent years, some quick service restaurant (QSR) brands began installing drive-throughs served by traditional AI chatbots. The hope was to create a more efficient experience for guests.

While traditional chatbots tend to perform well with customers doing routine tasks, like checking a bank balance or tracking a package—or ordering directly off the menu—they can struggle to understand unusual requests or answer questions that don’t fit their pre-programmed responses.

Last year, some of these same QSR brands began replacing the traditional AI chatbots with ordering systems powered by GenAI, promising a new era of smooth, human-like interactions. With their ability to understand casual conversations and use large language models (LLMs) to generate answers to even some unexpected questions, these bots could truly streamline the drive-through experience for customers and employees.

Depending on where the GenAI computing models powering these experiences occurs, there could be a big impact on enterprise IT architecture. When large language models are housed in the cloud or a data center, businesses will need to move tremendous amounts of data to and from the edge, where customer interactions occur and new data is ingested. And it all needs to happen instantaneously. While these new bots have the potential to transform the drive-through experience, they cannot do it without fast, low-latency connections.

Data in motion

The one thing all these applications have in common is greater demand on the enterprise network. Without that reliable, low latency connectivity, businesses that depend on GenAI are leaving the door open to disruptions. If their networks are not capable of transferring volumes of data between the edge and the cloud or data center at very low latency, GenAI experiences could fall short of expectations—both theirs and the customers’.

And moving all that data naturally requires a heightened level of vigilance. “Whether you are storing data on prem or in the cloud, you need to protect it,” says Verma. “With an influx of proprietary and customer data powering these large language models and traversing the network, secure networking will continue to be paramount to help protect sensitive and confidential information – and to prevent malicious actors from poisoning data to manipulate the model’s outcomes.”

While GenAI is still in its relative infancy, customers and employees will soon come to expect the kind of hyper-personalized, highly fluid experiences it can deliver. To keep up with the demand, enterprises need to make sure their IT infrastructure is up to the task with a network that is safe, reliable and able to connect and deliver the high compute and low latency GenAI requires.

In this new environment, enterprise IT infrastructure will spell the difference between delivering cutting-edge experiences and falling behind. The right technology partner can mean less time spent worrying about connectivity and more time focused on delivering exceptional experiences.

Learn more about Comcast Business Enterprise Solutions.

Originally posted on CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/advertorial/2024/06/26/to-build-the-next-generation-of-experiences-genai-demands-data-in-motion.html