Uniting human and machine for customer success

There’s no doubt we’ve entered the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a new era of intelligence-based technological change transforming the way we work, live and relate to each other as well as the companies we buy and engage with.

According to the World Economic Forum, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have four main effects on business: On customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organisational forms.

We can already see this through the wave of artificial intelligence-based technologies coming to the fore, impacting all aspects of engagement. Whether it’s servicing consumers through virtual assistants, for example, or pre-empting their choices and preferences through predictive analytics, AI is quickly pervading interactions and their outcomes. AI’s impact is also increasingly apparent via robotics and automated technologies creating a new type of organisation, shaking up ways we work and new forms of collaboration.

But even as we further embrace AI and the idea that machines will make increasingly autonomous decisions, what’s equally clear is how important the human element remains in the enterprise. Far from AI machines running the world, it’s organisations that harness both machines and human ingenuity that will be best positioned for success.

So how can marketing and technology leaders more successfully balance the rise of the machine with human-centred values and intuition?

Our February 2019 Executive Connections event will seek to help organisations navigate these unchartered waters by investigating:

• What the era of intelligence means for organisations and their customers
• Where AI is making the biggest impact so far for marketers and technologists
• Finding a healthy balance between machine and human; where each plays an important role
• What emotional and strategic skills and capabilities need to be developed in teams to cope with the rise of AI and more automated engagement

About Executive Connections:

Executive Connections is an annual event series designed to bring marketing, customer experience and IT leaders together to debate key trends and technologies impacting their strategic role in business. This event series, which is brought to you jointly by CMO and CIO magazines, kicked off to great acclaim in May 2014. Since then, we’ve returned to Auckland, Melbourne and Sydney each year to discuss key themes relevant to marketing, technology, CX and digital functions, including mastering digital transformation, agility, fostering innovation and crafting better customer experiences.

In 2019, we will again travel to all 3 cities in February, bringing together CMOs, CX leaders, heads of digital and CIOs to discuss prevalent issues and trends influencing these strategic executive functions.

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Attendance is restricted to CIOs, CMOs, heads of IT, heads of marketing, head of customer experience, heads of digital and their direct reports. IDG reserves the right to refuse attendance to any person not fitting this job description or from a non-sponsoring vendor, consulting or agency organisation.