Follow the Feeling

11FOLLOWING THE FEELING: What's the Role of Technology in Following the Feeling?

With the speed to technology and facial recognition growing faster, the time to cross the technology chasm is shortening. Should we fight machine learning advances like emotion identification and facial recognition that could make customer experience feedback more real-time and seamless, or embrace the new methods? In a 2018 Medium post, Netherlands-based innovation manager Daan de Geus paints the picture of the “smart museum” of the future.¹ Imagine the Louvre installing facial recognition software that enabled them to track attentiveness of visitors by work (e.g., Mona Lisa versus Venus de Milo), pleasantness of various exhibits or museum attractions, or simply gather higher quality visitor data by age and gender based on dwell times. Would consumers be open to anonymous biometric feedback exchanges through technology that ultimately makes the brand experience more enjoyable?

Like most new technologies, the adoption of software that measures emotions and feelings will increase as use cases build for how problems are being solved, frustrations are being addressed, and speed to customer experience improvements are cataloged. And in terms of those use cases, over the past 10 years, we've finally moved from gestural expression for fun (e.g., in gaming) to facial expression as a lifeline (e.g., in hospitals).

Use cases for emotion-tracking and facial recognition software have increased to now range ...