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 are bringing new capabilities to help Xero customers run their operations and manage their finances more efficiently. 

However, with Generative AI (GenAI) being one of the more recent exciting and emerging technology developments, it was one of the big areas we wanted to share more detail around how we are approaching it and how we see it impacting accounting in the future.

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

• Introducing conversational interfaces on the apps and surfaces  (i.e. mobile and Whatsapp) where you need the support the most, including Xero Central, our customer support site
• 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 will 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 it will also anticipate other tasks that may follow, such as sending an email to follow up on an overdue payment. It will also provide rapid, personalised insights on demand, such as cash flow projections, to give customers the confidence they need to make business decisions. 

Check out our 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 have also rolled out an AI assistant to improve the customer onboarding experience. 

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

Xero has also embedded a GenAI tool into Xero Central to provide answers customers need in conversational language. Results of the early testing performed 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 on Xero’s Investor Centre.