Sitting down to write what is the first edition of The Punk CX Dispatches, a new and monthly missive, I find my gaze wandering to the view outside my office window.
The flurry of snow lying on the ground outside reminds me of how cold it was on Saturday night when we ventured out to see a friend’s punk band perform live for the first time in a long time.
The thought of how cold it was also reminded me of something that NiCE‘s VP of AI Product, Neeraj Verma, said to Dave Michels in a recent article across at NoJitter.
Verma said, “A single ChatGPT response uses as much energy as a 1500-watt heater consumes in an hour.”
We have a 1500W oil-filled electric radiator in the office, so that makes for a pretty sobering thought.
The article went on to point out that while “an old-school conversational AI interaction might cost 15-20 cents” an interaction that is powered by a large language model (LLM) could cost “dollars per interaction” and that number could double if you factor in the idea that “advanced AI agents are non-deterministic” and many use cases will require the use of an additional AI model to manage and monitor its performance.
That’s another sobering thought, right?
If not, it should be, especially considering the increasing (and becoming perennial) pressure on customer service and customer experience leaders to deliver demonstrable RoI on their investments and initiatives.
This and the importance of driving better outcomes were two of the themes that emerged out of my annual predictions piece (18 Customer experience predictions for 2026).
With that in mind, I’ll leave you with this thought:
If you are interested in delivering a clear RoI from your CX and AI investments, then the best tool for the job might not be the latest one.
Before you go, check out last month’s episodes of the Punk CX podcast:
- Brands should avoid making Gen AI or chatbots their sole frontline – Interview with Phil Regnault of PwC
- Douglas Adams’ Babelfish concept just got much closer – Interview with Sharath Keshava Narayana of Sanas
- Twilio’s secret sauce and CarFinance247’s road to success – Interviews from Twilio SIGNAL London 2025 – featuring Peter Bell, VP of EMEA Marketing at Twilio and Michael Binks and his colleague Paul Mawson, who are Director of Technology and Head of Product, respectively, at Carfinance247, the UK’s leading digital car finance platform.
Enjoy and see you next month 🙂
