How GenAI will shape the future for our customers

We shared a number of product and tech updates at Xero’s Investor Day in Melbourne on how we’re bringing new capabilities to help Xero customers run their operations and manage their finances more efficiently. 

With Generative AI (GenAI) being one of the more recent exciting and emerging technology developments, we wanted to share more detail around how we’re approaching it and how we see it impacting accounting in the future.

At Investor Day, we outlined our approach to how we will integrate AI into our product to help businesses better manage their accounting needs. The three key areas are: 

• introducing conversational interfaces on the apps and devices and apps where businesses most need support, including on mobile, WhatsApp and our customer support site, Xero Central
• automating and streamlining important but repetitive and time-consuming accounting tasks, including bank reconciliation
• delivering the right insights at the right time, through features like Xero Analytics Plus 

We also gave a snapshot of some exciting new ways we’ll be using GenAI in our products. 

Introducing Xero’s GenAI smart business companion, Just Ask Xero 

GenAI has changed the game when it comes to using conversational interfaces to interact with data, with large language models revolutionising human-computer interaction. Xero is developing a conversational interface – called Just Ask Xero (JAX) – using powerful GenAI technology.

JAX gives users a natural, approachable way to interact with Xero’s product, right from within the apps and devices they already use every day. When available, Xero’s customers will be able to Just Ask Xero to complete tasks like generating an invoice, editing a quote or paying a bill, either in Xero or other commonly used apps and surfaces such as mobile, WhatsApp and email. 

JAX will not only complete the task, but will also anticipate other tasks that may follow, such as sending an email to follow up on an overdue payment. And it will provide rapid, personalised insights, such as cash flow projections, on demand, to give customers the confidence they need to make business decisions. 

Check out the JAX demo video to see how it will work. A JAX beta will go live later in 2024.

Using GenAI to onboard customers and support next generation customer service

We’ve also rolled out an AI assistant to improve the customer onboarding experience. 

Announced at Xerocon Sydney, the AI assistant provides new Xero users with relevant answers and information as they set up their Xero dashboard and get started with the product. We plan to integrate the AI assistant into JAX to streamline the onboarding and troubleshooting experience.

Xero has also embedded a GenAI tool into Xero Central to provide answers for customers using conversational language. Results from early testing have been promising. Xero has seen a 40% decrease in average customer search time, with search sessions requiring additional customer service support decreasing by about 20%. More detail on these updates can be found in our ASX announcement and Investor Day presentations at Xero’s Investor Centre.