Vodafone invests in OpenAI for AI customer service
With the help of Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI), Vodafone's chatbot "TOBI" will handle customer issues more extensively. Simultaneously, the AI is expected to offset significant savings on employees in Germany.
Vodafone is investing around 140 million Euros in AI systems from Microsoft and OpenAI this year to improve customer query handling. By employing advanced AI, the chatbot "TOBI" will respond faster than before and resolve customer issues more effectively, according to the company in Düsseldorf.
The chatbot was introduced by Vodafone five years ago and was equipped with the real voice of a Vodafone employee. Last year alone, the system in Germany handled eight million customer inquiries and resolved around 65% of them independently, without requiring a human employee.
Through the use of OpenAI technology in the Azure cloud environment from Microsoft, these values are expected to be further improved. "TOBI" will react more quickly than before and resolve customer issues more effectively. This was demonstrated by experience in Portugal and Italy, where Microsoft Azure OpenAI is already in use. In Germany, the new system is expected to start in the coming weeks and will help customers, among other things, with hardware problems and setting up fixed-line routers.
AI replaces employees
Vodafone Germany announced in March that it intended to save around 2000 jobs and relocate them. At that time, the company employed approximately 15,000 employees, about a third of whom were in the North Rhine-Westphalian state capital. Therefore, around 13% of the workforce is affected by these cost-cutting measures. In the context of these savings, it was also announced in March that the company would focus more on AI. Additionally, separate customer service systems for cable connections and mobile phones are to be merged.
The technology used by Vodafone is a Microsoft product, but it contains a lot of AI from OpenAI. As a major investor in OpenAI startup, Microsoft can not only use ChatGPT in its own products but also other products like the image generator DALL-E or the speech transcription model Whisper, which can almost error-free convert spoken language into written text.
The investment in AI systems from Microsoft and OpenAI by Vodafone is expected to result in substantial cost savings due to automated customer service, leading to potential dismissals within the company. The chatbot "TOBI," powered by Microsoft's AI, will serve a larger portion of customer issues, further reducing the need for human employees.
