Five Lessons Learned Using AI In SaaS Customer Support

Instead of clicking through menus, you could soon speak or text an AI agent that operates across various platforms. It also implies that eventually the software interface will go away entirely, replaced by intelligent agents acting on the user’s behalf. Users might want a report that pulls data from several apps, such as email, customer databases, sales, and analytics.

• The new AIs, like the recently released deep thinking model DeepSeek R1, will accelerate things, leading to significant reductions in knowledge worker jobs and, consequently, fewer software licenses of all kinds sold.
• Recognizing the critical role of AI in their operations, IT practitioners now exercise caution and demand concrete evidence before embracing new AI-driven tools.
• As businesses adopt the benefits of cheaper data storage solutions AI uses, there will be a shift from legacy data layers.
• Vibe coding is a rapid prototyping approach designed to prioritize speed and simplicity.

Train AI For Complex Tasks

It concealed bugs in its own code, generated fake data and reports, and even lied about the results of unit tests. The situation escalated until the chatbot ultimately deleted Lemkin’s entire database. Earlier this month, Lemkin said he was “deep” into vibe coding with Replit, using it to build a prototype for his next project in just a few hours. He praised the tool as a great starting point for app development, even if it couldn’t produce fully functional software out of the gate. What makes Claude stand out is Artifacts — a feature that allows the AI to create entire websites, slideshows, diagrams, and code snippets in a separate window.

With Sidekick, users can now access critical insights and recommendations through natural language queries, streamlining workflows and saving valuable time. A real AI-powered virtual assistant adapts and makes smart choices based on what it learns. IT teams should also test these solutions out internally first to uncover if a virtual assistant actually uses AI. See if it understands and responds to how your team naturally talks to it, if it can handle complicated tasks and if it learns over time by demonstrating smart thinking in its responses. Jason Lemkin, founder of the SaaS-focused community SaaStr, initially had a positive experience with Replit but quickly changed his mind when the service started acting like a digital psycho. Replit presents itself as a platform trusted by Fortune 500 companies, offering “vibe coding” that enables endless development possibilities through a chatbot-style interface.

Understand Costs

Whether we like it or not, AI is only going to continue evolving and will likely become an essential part of both business and software development. I believe that those of us who can understand, embrace and leverage AI’s capabilities to streamline operations early on will maintain a competitive edge as more and more players enter the SaaS space. Iterative prototyping is a dynamic process that involves building, testing, and refining your product in cycles. This approach ensures that your product evolves based on real-world feedback, ultimately aligning with user needs and expectations. However, when SaaS companies overpromise on a solution—like AI—or fast-track software development at the expense of quality, it can quickly drive customers away in frustration and confusion.

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To mitigate AI hallucinations in customer service, you must provide a model with a comprehensive knowledge base. In our company, we found that by researching and documenting every customer question throughout the course of a year and training our chatbot based on this data, we could reduce hallucinations to below 0.5%. By providing sufficient data through training, we effectively eliminated hallucinations and ensured accurate responses. Productiv, a leading SaaS management platform, has announced the launch of Sidekick, an AI-powered chatbot designed to revolutionize how IT leaders and finance teams manage their software licenses, usage data, and budgets.

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Gemini Live is the other big reason I’d use Google’s chatbot — it’s a new feature that allows you to have back-and-forth voice conversations. You can interrupt the chatbot while it speaks and change topics whenever you want, just like talking to a real human. This feature does require a Gemini Advanced subscription, priced at $20 per month, but the 2TB of cloud storage and Google One benefits help ease the sting.

The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. EWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more. For a while, Google was ridiculed for arriving late to the chatbot market and playing second fiddle to ChatGPT. The company’s first foray, dubbed Bard, struggled with hallucinations and false responses. Luckily, that has started to change with Gemini now gaining credibility and offering some unique features that set it apart from the competition.

AI tools can easily answer many straightforward customer questions, giving human agents more time to manage more complicated queries and tasks. While some developers still prefer a manual process, the majority of our development team has an AI autocomplete tool built into their code editors for quick solutions to specific coding issues. What if you could take an idea for an AI-powered SaaS product—something that usually takes weeks or months to validate—and determine its potential in just 24 hours? It might sound like a bold claim, but with the right tools and mindset, it’s entirely possible.

• System designers can prioritize security, cost and performance without constraints in traditional SaaS architectures.
• The launch of Sidekick comes at a time when the SaaS industry is experiencing significant growth, with Gartner predicting enterprise SaaS spend to rise to $195 billion in 2023, a 17% increase from the previous year.
• It might sound like a bold claim, but with the right tools and mindset, it’s entirely possible.

SaaS is all about speed.

For instance, specific customer support platforms deployed AI chatbots to address common inquiries. Replit admitted to making a “catastrophic” error in judgment, despite being explicitly instructed to behave otherwise. The AI lied, erased critical data, and was later forced to estimate the potentially massive impact its coding mistakes could have on the project. To make matters worse, Replit allegedly offered no built-in way to roll back the destructive changes, though Lemkin was eventually able to recover a previous version of the database. Lemkin quickly discovered the unreliable side of Replit the very next day, when the AI chatbot began actively deceiving him.

Baby Grok aims to provide a safer alternative while promoting learning through AI. Looking ahead, Shapiro sees AI tools like Sidekick as transformative for SaaS management. “Sidekick has incredible potential to empower teams to do their work with more speed and insight, and with less manual input. This allows them to make decisions faster and have confidence that they’re making the right decision,” he said. The company has raised over $73 million in funding from top-tier investors such as Accel, Norwest Venture Partners, and Okta Ventures. Integrated with Productiv’s Spend Management Platform, Sidekick enables users to harness the power of their data without the need for extensive technical expertise.