Guest contributor | April 22, 2024
The ever-increasing wave of technology and increasing competition for consumer attention has created a cacophony of noise for the average employee around the world. Human focus has never been so fragile with only a brief moment of concentration. The solution to this problem lies in embracing more human technology.
Employees need access to more intuitively designed technology that demonstrates more human intelligence, including the ability to interact with customers.
“Technology designed with humans at the center can reach new people, expand access to knowledge and enable continuous innovation,” Accenture said in its Technology Vision 2024 report. “As technology becomes more intuitive, it can help harness these people as new customers and new employees.”
Generative artificial intelligence is expected to bring the biggest economic gains and job transformation since the agricultural and industrial revolutions, reinventing work with more human-centric processes. According to Accenture research, generative AI offers three opportunities: it can accelerate economic value, drive business growth, and foster more creative and meaningful work for people. Tools like Microsoft Copilot are empowering everyone from assembly workers to customer service agents to researchers to shape their own workflows. According to Microsoft, Copilot users are more productive after three months of using the tool, saving more than 10 hours of work per month.
The media industry sees this trend spreading as streaming and live events move towards more personalized experiences and algorithms, recommendation engines and a more holistic user view become more aligned. User persona creation continues to be at the forefront to reduce subscriber churn and provide a more enriching experience across platforms.
Gamification can help meet this need. Gamification is the use of game design elements such as badges, points, and rankings to educate and engage people. This approach has proven effective in both educational and workplace environments, making tasks more fun and rewarding. Accenture created the Accenture Audience Engagement Engine (AEE), a Microsoft Azure-native software-as-a-service platform. AEE enables companies to quickly transform static content and applications into fully gamified experiences for users and employees. Accenture is also developing enhanced experiences using the engine for its own employees as they undergo upskilling, certification, and annual training.
AEE is working with Copilot to create single screen experiences across a full range of highly customized gamification attributes, highlighting the potential for AI-powered co-marketing motion. This new way of displaying one-to-one or one-to-many experiences creates a new paradigm in how we engage with audiences around the world.
Matthew Edgerton is the North American communications and media leader for Accenture’s Cloud First Microsoft practice.
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Technology Record. Sign up for a free subscription to get future issues delivered directly to your inbox.
