Laird has always embodied contemporaneous technology, so we were keen to embrace the myriad of new artificial intelligence technologies that came to the market in 2023. Here’s a summary of how far we’ve come and our plans to embrace AI further in 2024:
In the last year, Laird introduced AI to read incoming instructions from clients, acting like an API, smartly putting the salient data into our workflow platform, Swiftcase, & using intelligent automation (IA) to allow jobs to follow workflows according to their individual criteria.
Laird used AI to assist with capturing crashed car images from consumers to expedite their workflow, thus reducing key-to-key times. Drivers are sent a (white-labelled) link (no annoying app to download) that guides them through a series of curated images of their vehicle, its damage, mileage, chassis number, etc. This is then sent through our visual intelligence (VI) system:
The VI will assess vehicle damage. Currently, it’s only good enough to evaluate light or superficial damage with any degree of confidence, but we hope we can use it more as AI develops further. Our human engineers are still doing the majority of the vehicle damage assessment.
We can now automate our clients set actions based on our vehicle damage assessments. For example, if we deem a vehicle as repairable, we can instruct their approved repairer based on their criteria such as location, availability, etc, instruct their hire car department if the vehicle is unroadworthy, keep their driver informed throughout the process (assisting with new consumer duties) and manage the status of the entire repair process until completion. All these functions would have previously been the responsibility of our client, so our AI-powered automation allows us to leapfrog forward. No more queues or backlogs, with full visibility and interaction via our online portal. This saves our clients a great deal of time & effort, allowing them to concentrate on their core business.
We use generative AI to assist with our chatbots. The first one we launched was designed to agree total loss valuations with customers 24/7 & proved even more successful than anticipated, particularly amongst Generation Z.
In the background, our developers use AI to assist in generating code as we continue to enhance our workflows. We also use it to test our systems, creating millions of potential workflows in seconds to try to break them and suggest enhancements.
Our marketing department uses it to generate adverts and marketing materials; projects that previously would take days & weeks are now created in seconds, with exponentially more options and personalisations.
2024
Following the success of our total-loss chatbot, 2024 will see the introduction of a wider range, and we are particularly excited about our natural language voice bot. It is integrated with our intelligent automation (IA) platform, Swiftcase, to act similarly to a human customer service advisor. We’re starting slowly, activating her after hours, letting her learn more about Laird with every call, and building our clients’ confidence in her ability to assist easily.
We will continue working with VI to find ways to help it understand vehicle damage more confidently and look to use it when superficial damage is expected, such as de-fleeting, hire-car returns or even pre-insurance inspections.
Customer service and accuracy are core pillars of Laird, so we need to ensure that any AI and IA that we use only improves our existing service. Suffice it to say we’re very keen to research and explore the incredible opportunities that AI has to offer.
(This article was written (98%) by Nik, not AI!)