How an AI integration can actually drive customers away

AI integrations fail when they replace human connection entirely. Stephen Roach, VP of Ecosystems and AI at Qualified Digital, explains why customers immediately reject automated experiences that lack human touchpoints. He outlines designing better handoff triggers between AI and human agents, implementing contextual personalization that adapts to individual customer needs, and creating hybrid experiences that enhance rather than replace human interaction. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55 to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical life span of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro and joining me today is Stephen Roach, the VP of Ecosystems and AI at Qualified Digital, which helps Fortune 500 brands transform customer experiences through data-driven solutions. And today, Stephen will reveal exactly when human oversight is non-negotiable in your AI stack. Can you explain to a CMO why their AI integration is actually driving customers away?

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  I think one of the biggest issues that we have today is we are getting deeper into misunderstanding the human interaction. People want to interact with people. You know.

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  That's a novel concept.

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  Yes, but they do. You know, and you see it in today's, not to get off on a small tangent, you see it in today's kids. My, my kids watch streamers, very limited amount. They watch streamers, they're interactive though, they're speaking to one another. And I think that's, we're missing that in business today. So there's, there's still a, a concept where, you know, when you call Verizon.

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  And you immediately get this AI voice and it's instantly rejected. It's like, I don't want to speak to any AI. I want to speak to a person. And I think that's, we're missing that. And I'm not saying the solution is to remove AI. It's to design the experience to fit AI into it. You know, we need better handoff triggers, better overall contextual personalization that fits me. My plan is very different than yours. Verbal could be the same, you know, but we're two different individuals. So having AI understand and help us understand is going to be a major, major step forward. And then, you know, making sure they enhance every step going forward.

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  You know, we're, we're not, the, the use case is not to remove humans. It's to better our, our overall involvement and enhance our overall processes across the world.

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  You know, there's a consistent theme here where we talked about how marketers want to automate to improve margins. And builders want to automate to, you know, not have to pay an engineer to build something for them. And in customer service, we want to integrate artificial intelligence. But, but at each one of those, in each one of those business functions, there has to be a balance between understanding where you're sacrificing quality.

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  If you're a marketer and you think you can automate without having a human check what you're shipping, you're setting yourself up to fail. If you're building something and you think you can just vibe code without having some sort of sanity check that what you're coding isn't going to create undue security risk, you're creating problems. If you're in customer service and you think that people want to engage with your AI integration, you're taking crazy pills. Right? Humans want to interact with humans. Now, artificial intelligence can be human-like. It can create value, right? It definitely can lower margins. But if you

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  sit down, you ask a person whether they want to integrate with your chatbot, or whether they want to talk to a person. I think you know the answer. And fundamentally, we all, at every function of our business, need to think through where we want artificial intelligence to support what we're doing, and where we actually still need the human logic feel, and the term de jour is vibe, but just the interaction level between one person to another, to make us feel like we're still human. And Stephen, I appreciate you coming on the podcast and telling us a little bit more about where we can use artificial intelligence while remaining human and keeping that humanity in the loop.

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  I appreciate you. Thank you, Ben.

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  All right, that wraps up this episode of the MarTech Podcast. Thanks to Stephen Roach, VP of Data Ecosystems at Qualified Digital. If you'd like to get in touch with Stephen, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or on martechpod.com, or you can visit his company's website, which is qualifieddigital.com. If you haven't subscribed yet, and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app, or visit us on YouTube, and we'll be back in your feed next week. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.