Artificial intelligence (AI) stands to increase quality and efficiency in the consumer electronics industry, as well as reduce costs, new gfu survey finds

At the IFA Kick-Off event this year gfu’s Dr Sara Warneke and Oliver Wyman’s Martin Schulte presented the results of a joint survey revealing the industry’s optimistic outlook on AI for customer-related services.

“AI is here to stay”

“A positive attitude towards AI prevails,” said Dr Sara Warneke, Managing Director gfu Consumer & Home Electronics, summarising the findings of the survey carried out together with the management consultancy Oliver Wyman to gage the perception of AI adoption.

With participants encompassing over 100 decision-makers from the consumer electronics, large and small electrical appliances, smart home, telecommunications, and automotive sectors, the survey analysed various AI use cases. Among them were marketing, predictive maintenance, and customer services across different stages of customer interaction from pre-purchase to post-purchase.

“AI is here to stay,” Dr Warneke confirmed, and as the survey demonstrated many companies have already adopted it. 95% of the participating companies are already using AI in at least one of the areas covered and 68% have introduced it in three or more areas.

While only 7% of the participating companies confirm broad implementation, respondents expect a rapid increase within the next five years, and by 2029, 83% intend to use AI in at least three areas while 75% expect five or more application scenarios.

Measurable benefits

According to respondents, AI not only improves quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, but also delivers measurable financial benefits. Consequently, the use of AI leads to an average increase in turnover and profit of 2.8% and 1.9% respectively and a drop in structural costs by an average of 3.4%.

Marketing in particular is a domain that represents measurable benefits and according to the survey more than twice as many companies —97%— want to use AI in this area by 2029 compared to today. The same applies to sales advice, where an increase from 39% to 94% is expected.

“The progress made and ambitions to expand the use of AI demonstrate the potential of the technology in improving client engagement and satisfaction,” commented Mr Schulte, partner at Oliver Wyman. “Companies that push ahead with AI implementations at an early stage can gain a significant competitive advantage.”

“In addition to increases in quality and efficiency for the companies, both drove customer and employee satisfaction along with reduced structural costs. This is a rare win-win situation for both customers and companies,” affirmed Dr Warneke.

The human element

At this year’s IFA Kick-Off event, a diverse group of speakers shared insights into adopting AI. Robert Taylor, Sr Technology Lead and Strategist at Microsoft Germany, pointed out the extremely rapid adoption of AI technology with three out of four people already using it in a work setting.

Embracing a new technology so rapidly is not without challenges and the speakers stressed the need to keep the human element in mind when implementing AI solutions. “We need to think about how we want to adopt it to benefit from a true value add while keeping our humanity,” Mr Taylor stressed.

“It’s about the interaction of AI and humanity, with the need for a certain level of regimentation,” agreed Gina Elsholz, Managing Director and Executive Creative Director of Ketchum Germany.

For Dr Cristian Axenie, Professor of Computer Science at the Nuremberg Institute of Technology, training users is fundamental. “It is important to train people in the right way, not to just put them in front of AI, but to prepare them with basic AI competence so they have the right reflexes, prompts, and ask the right questions.”