Wood Chuck And I Post Conference

As Wood Chuck and I return to NZ from Genesys Xperience 25, we're processing what we witnessed. The event was hectic, loud, and transformative—and the old ways of doing business won't cut it anymore. If your competition embraces these new paradigms while you hesitate, you'll be left behind.

Some questions rolling around in my head:

Are "Contact Centre" and "ACD"—terms we've used for 30-odd years—about to vanish from our vocabulary entirely?

If AI becomes a workforce entity, how will it be represented? And more importantly, how will human workers adapt alongside it? Will rights have to be assigned to maintain workplace discipline and morale? If there are complaints, is it the CIO or the HR team that deals with it?

Will legislation keep pace with the AI revolution? How do we retrain and support those whose roles will inevitably be displaced?

Will the threatened AI tax be applied to each bot deployed that is deemed to replace the work of an individual in the workplace?

Where does innovation come from in 50 years if we are relying on AI for it? AI is a reflection and data repository of the past. If there is no non-AI innovation in specific fields, and we ultimately remove the human factor for cost reasons, will specific industries and sciences stagnate?

The storm I see brewing:

Unlike some executives at the show, I'm not convinced AI's path is all smooth sailing. The infrastructure and power demands are staggering. Data centres already consume 2-3% of all EU energy—45-65 TWh in 2022 alone. That's more than New Zealand's entire energy production for the same year.

Then there's the economics. OpenAI is projecting $5 billion in losses against $3.7 billion in revenue for 2024. Massive investments have been made, and returns will be demanded.

Google's shift from n=100 to n=10 search results is shrinking the visible web. Fewer niche sources make it into AI training sets, concentrating power with well-ranked publishers.

Could we see a "Broadcom moment" in AI?

What if AI becomes the exclusive domain of enterprises and the ultra-wealthy, while everyone else gets scraps? Broadcom increased VMware prices by 300-1000% and killed perpetual licenses. An AI acquirer could do the same:

• Shift from pay-per-token to enterprise bundles

• Eliminate free tiers or add prohibitive limits

• Require minimum annual commits ($100K+)

• Force bundling with other products (like Microsoft's Azure strategy)

Companies have deeply embedded ChatGPT into their products—customer service, content generation, and code assistance. Forced API migrations could mean months of re-engineering and massive technical debt.

The reality:

Many unknowns remain. But companies are betting the house on AI. Let's hope it's not a house of cards.

#AITransformation #CustomerExperience #GenesysXperience