Overview
Artificial intelligence (AI) was formally founded as an academic discipline at a conference in 1956, long before workforce management (WFM) systems became a staple in the contact center. In the years since, AI initiatives and enthusiasm have ebbed and flowed, but there’s been a recent surge in interest and investment due to advancements in computing power, an explosion of data collection and the business need to seek increased productivity and profitability through technology. Writing in Harvard Business Review, MIT researchers Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee called AI and machine learning “the most important general-purpose technology of our era.”