Book excerpt: A bold new look at how technology can become a force multiplier to deliver more empathy and integrate deeper, more personalized human connections into everyday business interactions at scale. While the world has never needed more empathy than today, too often technology is used by businesses as a substitute and a barrier to real human connection. We've all experienced dumb chatbots, automated scripts and poor employee interactions that dehumanizes customer interactions. That's because brands have focused on company centric business strategies, processes and technology. However, simply put: No customers, no business. What if, by transforming the old company-centric way of doing business and putting customers and employees front and center, businesses could succeed faster than ever before and not at the expense of their most important assets--the very people who make it possible to be in business? Empathy is a powerful construct for a better world and a better business. It's not a synonym for nice. Empathy is about respect and treating people in the context of their unique situation in a highly personalized way. In this groundbreaking new book, longtime technology leader and current CEO of Genesys, Tony Bates teams up with researcher and customer experience evangelist, Dr. Natalie Petouhoff to define a new path forward to put empathy into action. By using strategies and technologies as the flywheel to orchestrate systems of listening, understanding and predicting, as well as, taking action and learning from those interactions at scale, businesses can easily put the customer and employee first, not only meet the ever-changing customer and employee expectations, but also leapfrog their competition. They predict empathy is the next frontier in technology. This book is aimed at sparking an industry-wide conversation about how exponential technologies like, AI and cloud can enable a more empathetic world.