Bio: 

Professor Mohamed Zaki is the Deputy Director of the Cambridge Service Alliance, a leading research centre uniting top global firms and academics to tackle digital service transformation challenges. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Service Management and is a high profile academic in data-driven customer experience transformation, specialising in AI applications for customer experience design, management  and data-driven business models. With over 100 publications in top-tier journals, conferences, including outlets such as Harvard Business Review. Mohamed has authored several books, including Data-Driven Customer Experience Transformation and the Handbook of Service Experience. He has secured over £10 million in research funding from industry and research councils. Mohamed has consulted and lectured for more than 100 organisations, including Manchester United, Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, AstraZeneca, IKEA, HCL Tech, Toshiba, Manchester City, and Birmingham City Council. He leads the Data-Driven Design for Customer Experience (CX) online course at Cambridge Advance Online. He serves as an AI advisor for many companies, such as Tactful AI. He has also contributed to UK government initiatives, including the UK Telecoms Innovation Network (UKTIN), where he played a role in developing a 5G and AI adoption toolkit for the telecom industry.

CV / Personal website

Abstract: 

Firms face challenges in digital sales due to insufficient personalisation and responsiveness. The rise of AI agents powered by large language models (LLMs) is reshaping customer interactions, enabling a transformative synergy between human agents and AI. Firms adopting these technologies have seen significant reductions in wait times and operational costs, enhanced complex problem-solving abilities, and improved overall efficiency. AI-driven customer service agents leverage generative AI and NLP to accurately interpret customer conversations, emotions, and psychographic profiles, enabling precise sales inquiry classification and targeted responses. By supporting human agents with accurate product information and optimised conversational flows, AI enhances customer experience through empathy and personalised communication, increasing purchase intent, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. Strategically integrating AI agents is essential for maximising sales opportunities, improving retention, and achieving competitive advantages in direct-to-consumer (D2C) digital platforms. In this talk, I will speak about my recent work with the industry on how AI agents helped them to increase productivity and sales.