Page - 124 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

For additional illustration of this classification scheme, the following case studies serve as examples in their usage of AI applications.Moreover, additional investigations in this chapter are to bemade based on the classification scheme. 4 Examples fromPractice: InvestigatingNewcomers and Incumbent Enterprises 4.1 Illustrating aNewcomer: TheCase of E-Bot7 TheGermancompanyofe-bot7 is a start-up founded inmid-2016and located in the city ofMunich. The product the company is offering is based around anAI-driven algorithmthat isoriented towardsautomatedcustomer responsecommunication. It is offering its customers the reduction of employee usage in customer communication throughtheusageoftheiralgorithm.ThisisachievedbyanNLPalgorithm,that isnot onlylearningongivenusecasesofcustomercontact,butalsoconstantlyevolvingdue toongoingbusinesscases (cf. e-bot72020a). It aimsat automated responses to stan- dardizedcustomerquestionsandthesortingofmorecomplexqueries to theexpected professionalinbetweenthecompany.TheirproducttheAgent +KI®HybridModelis confirmingthecorrectnessofgivenanswersbybeingtrainedthroughtheemployeesof theoperatingcompany.Thatwaythepurchaserofe-bot7AI-basedproductcantrainthe algorithmfortheirserviceoperations(cf.e-bot72020b).Atbestautomatedanswerscan begeneratedtohandlerepeatinganduncomplicatedquestions.For thepurchaser, this can enable the employees to focus on more complex customer questions and the preservingoflabourthatcanbeautomated.Moreover,thatwaytheoperatingcompany shallbegettinganadvantagebyalesscost-intensivecustomercareservice.Customers of thee-bot7productsarewell-knowncompany’s likeDeutscheBahnorO2(cf.DIA Group B.V. 2020). The case of e-bot7 clearly shows a business model as AIaaS provider.TheproductacustomizedAIforcustomercommunicationwithitspromised human needed labour through automation is thereby the value proposition of the businessmodel.Ontheotherhand, theusageof theproductofe-bot7sbyacompany withintheirbusinessmodelcanratherbeclassifiedasAI-supported. Inrelationtothe classificationschemepresentedabove,theAIfocusesoncustomercommunicationand thusacustomerorientationthathasa(potentially)moderatedegreeofintensity.Onthe activitysideofthescheme,however,itcanbeassumedthatthemorecost-orientedand personnel-reducingactivitiesof theAIhaveaminor inflow.This isparticularlygiven by thepossibleautomationofcommunication. 4.2 Incumbents Innovation ThroughAI: Case Studies fromAmazon Amazon is serving as the first case study of an incumbent, consisting of three examples, on how Amazon uses AI in different ways for different objectives in 128 W. Pfau and P. Rimpp