Birdeye, the highest-ranked AI platform for local brands, proudly concludes Birdeye View 2024, an award-winning virtual conference for local brands.
Over the course of two action-packed days, attendees got a first look at groundbreaking new generative AI products from Birdeye and attended a series of engaging fireside chats with AI thought leaders, roundtable discussions amongst industry leaders, and educational breakout sessions about the Birdeye platform presented by product experts and customers.
Introducing Birdeye Insights AI and Competitors AI
Kicking off the conference, Dave Lehman, President and COO of Birdeye, unveiled Birdeye’s vision for an AI-first world and several new generative AI products set to revolutionize business operations for local brands, including:
- Birdeye Insights AI: Insights AI provides brands with a customized AI platform to measure and benchmark customer sentiment, reputation, and online presence, both at the brand and location levels. The product offers GenAI recommendations that are tailored to enhance customer experience, improve reputation, and boost online discoverability.
- Birdeye Competitors AI: Competitors AI equips brands with AI tools to identify, benchmark, and analyze their competition. The SWOT analysis and recommendations are similar to what F500 companies would get from consulting firms like McKinsey and BCG.
- Birdeye Score: At the core of Insights AI is the Birdeye Score, a comprehensive industry-standard metric that analyzes how customers find and perceive local brands. It’s built on three components: Sentiment Score (customer sentiment), Reputation Score (online presence), and Listings Score (online visibility and SEO), providing a holistic view of a brand’s online reputation and customer experience.
“To thrive in today’s hyper-competitive environment, local brands need deep insights into both their customer sentiment and their competitive landscape,” said Lehman. “Birdeye’s Insights AI and Competitors AI use the latest large language models (LLMs) to deliver the intelligence and recommendations that enable businesses to capitalize on their strengths and outshine the competition.”
Lehman also announced significant generative AI enhancements to Birdeye Social AI and Chatbot AI products.
AI Thought Leaders Shared a Vision for the Future of Local Business
View 2024 included four keynote presentations from leading AI experts, who shared their visions for the future of AI and its impact on local brands.
During the opening fireside chat with Dave Lehman, President and COO of Birdeye, Josh Linkner, Entrepreneur and NYT Bestselling Author, provided insights on innovation in the age of AI, including how AI is evolving and its transformative impact on local brands.
“AI is the single most profound technical advancement, certainly since the internet itself and perhaps even earlier. It’s one of those foundational elements, like electricity or the wheel, that will have far-reaching implications for both business and life,” said Linkner.
In the afternoon, Sherwin Wu, Head of Engineering at OpenAI, sat down for a fireside chat with Birdeye CMO Deepak Bahree to share his perspective on how local brands can leverage AI data assistants and data scientists to scale operations.
“Partnering with companies like Birdeye and innovators who build on our platform will enable us to reach every corner of the world, every use case, and bring these benefits into every office and workspace, making them accessible to everyone, everywhere,” said Wu.
Wu also debunked common AI misconceptions, stating: “A lot of people are making a mistake in thinking that this is as good as these models will get, and these models are really good already. I think people are not really prepared for how good some of these models are going to get very soon.”
To round out the day, Sandy Carter, Founder of Unstoppable Domains and Bestselling Author, delivered a keynote on the importance of being AI-first but human always.
“Always keep business goals front and center. That’s why I love startups and small to medium businesses – they always tend to look at their objectives, not just treating it as an AI project. In my mind, first principles still apply: use AI only where it matters for your business. Don’t pursue AI just because it’s AI,” said Carter.
Day two kicked off with a fireside chat between Brian Crook, Google’s Head of Cloud AI, and Mike Bohnett, SVP of Sales for Birdeye. During the conversation, Crook highlighted AI’s transformative impact on search, reviews, and customer experience.
“I think online reviews are absolutely going to stay relevant and perhaps even get more important depending on how AI evolves,” said Crook. “The key thing for all of these is to strike the right balance between automation and human interaction, ensuring an authentic personalized experience with the customer.”
Crook advised local brands to stay ahead of the AI curve by focusing on building value for customers, embracing new systems, investing in data-driven AI tools, and partnering with companies that can help navigate the complexity of data and AI.