How to get started with Generative AI Agent for Google Cloud

In the old days customer service agents were always people. You called a 1-800 number, probably waited on hold, and eventually explained your issue to a human. Today, your customer service agent may be a bot with whom you conduct an entirely digital conversation. These agents have evolved from traditional rules-based bots to chatbots powered by conversational and generative AI. In this article, we’ll explore the new Generative AI Agent for Google Cloud and share what you need to know to implement it in your own business.

What is Generative AI Agent for Google Cloud?

Google Generative AI Agent is designed to interact with customers in a natural – or human – way. Leveraging generative AI, the Agent is able to take data from a training set and then generate new data based on the patterns and characteristics. Generative AI Agent also uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand queries and answer questions more conversationally and accurately.

What are the benefits of Generative AI Agent?

Google’s Generative AI Agent allows customers to interact with brands in their preferred method – and marketing trends are showing that’s self-service. Today at least 81% of customers prefer to resolve issues on their own rather than engage with a live human. However, if they have a poor experience with a self-service channel, their brand perception can be damaged beyond repair. That’s why it’s so important that as CX leaders, we get every aspect of the customer experience right – especially the digital interactions.

Google’s Generative AI Agent trains on and learns from a company’s predefined knowledge sources. These sources could include the company’s website, frequently asked question documents, collateral, or other knowledge bases. As the source data is updated, the Generative AI Agent continues to evolve and refine its answers.

Google’s Generative AI Agent can improve contact center efficiency by freeing up human agents from routine customer inquiries so they can focus on higher-impact interactions. The Generative AI Agent can also improve customer satisfaction by providing 24/7 support, reducing wait times, and resolving customer inquiries quickly.

How are organizations using Google Cloud’s Generative AI Agent?

Google Cloud Generative AI Agent use cases include:

• Website Agent: Answer questions using your website as its knowledge base.
• FAQ Agent: Answer frequently asked questions based on existing FAQ documentation.
• Employee-facing Agent: Help employees with internal troubleshooting through HR support documentation.

Generative AI Agent can be configured to escalate a question to a live agent when needed. Google Cloud Generative AI Agent is also unique in that it can be deployed in any cloud contact center and built on any cloud contact center platform.

What do you need to implement Generative AI Agent for Google Cloud?

Before you get started with Generative AI Agent, the first step is to make sure your data and knowledge base sources are in the cloud, and the best way to ensure your data is in the cloud is to have a cloud contact center in place.

After that, one of the most important factors when implementing Generative AI Agent is your content. A Generative AI Agent is trained on the content you give it, so if that content is outdated or incomplete, the agent’s answers won’t be accurate.

For example, if you’re training a Google Generative AI Website Agent, that agent must be able to find answers to nearly any customer question by crawling your website. It can be helpful to compile an exhaustive list of customer questions and then audit your website to see if you can find the answer to each question within your content. If you can’t find all the answers, it’s a good signal to update your site – not only for agent training, but also for search engine optimization.

Of course, some inquiries will always be too complex for even artificial intelligence, which is why it is still so important to have highly-skilled customer service agents. When such complex inquires come through, the Generative AI Agent can automatically generate intent routing and seamlessly transfer the question to the appropriate live agent who can then provide the human touch needed to ensure the best customer experience.