The era of ‘robot clients’ or the emergence of augmented interaction models

Making an appointment at the hairdresser’s via virtual assistant, restocking toner by means of a smart printer or writing a letter of complaint using GenAI… Customers are evolving and willingly adopting new habits, thanks to increasingly efficient applications of new technologies.

“Custbot”, “client robot” or “robot-client”: the term to describe these autonomous systems capable of negotiating and/or purchasing goods and services is still fluctuating, but according to a Gartner report the trend itself is gaining ground. According to the American consulting firm, by 2026, 20% of the volume of incoming contacts managed by customer services will come from machines.

In the history of customer relations, human interaction has always been the basis for communication. Talking, listening, exchanging information and emotions from human to human: this was the established model. Along the way, human-machine interactions emerged, for instance with the rise of callbots. Since then, they have evolved rapidly and today, machines can initiate communications with humans to suggest actions. Able to self-regulate and adapt to users’ needs, they can even talk to each other without human intervention.

Thus we have entered an ‘augmented’ era where, depending on the circumstances, interaction models become hybridised and oscillate between human and machine.

“Augmented human”, “augmented advisor”, “augmented customer”: the digital revolution has resolutely opened up new avenues that raise many questions. If we look at the bigger picture, we can see that humankind has always sought to step outside the limits or constraints of its condition and capabilities, becoming ‘augmented’ as it evolved.

Humans already experienced a great hybridisation with the advent of writing, marking our passage from prehistory to history. The mechanics of putting our knowledge outside of ourselves through writing and reacquiring it through reading seem quite similar to today’s new hybrid interaction models inherent in the rise of GAI.

So… are you ready to interact with a robot customer?