AI Assembled: How IKEA's BILLIE AI Could Change The Face of Customer Experience

In June, the robot takeover took another step forward as IKEA assembled its own AI chatbot called Billie. Yes, they named their AI chatbot after their bookshelves. Billie will be taking over routine customer queries and IKEA says it has handled 47% of these kinds of inquiries to call centres over the past two years.

Now one of the key concerns when we hear something like this, is job losses, but IKEA says that its use of AI, currently, won’t mean job losses as they’re retraining call centre workers to become interior design advisers. Some 8,500 workers have made the switch since 2021.

So while concerns over job losses have been offset for now, it does bring up another big question for businesses - how does the rise of tech and AI Chatbots change the way businesses need to think about their customer experience and service strategies?

We explore the importance of Customer Experience, the need of the human element, and what the future of CX could look like with Byron Fernandez, Group Chief Information Officer and Executive Vice President of TDCX, a business process outsourcing (BPO) service provider.