The airline launched its own chatbot, AI.g, formerly known as Maharaja, in May 2023.
 "Air India uses artificial intelligence to cut call centre costs")
Jayden Matthew Paul Mumbai
Air India's use of artificial intelligence (AI) has had a major impact on the airline giant's call centre workload and the integration of the technology has reduced costs by 100-fold, a senior airline official said on Wednesday.
The airline introduced its own chatbot, AI.g, formerly known as Maharaja, in May 2023. Satya Ramaswamy, Air India's chief digital and technology officer, said that since its launch, the chatbot has answered around 2 million queries and handles 93% of customer queries without handing them over to a call centre agent. The chatbot is currently live in four languages: English, German, French and Hindi. It will be rolled out in other Indian languages in the future.
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Ramaswamy was speaking at the Salesforce World Tour Essentials India event held in Mumbai.
“Obviously, this is very disruptive, but we don't foresee contact centre agents going away completely. At least for now, there are a lot of complex scenarios where a contact centre agent is required. We are currently achieving a first call resolution rate of about 80 per cent, and a lot of this is down to Salesforce's ability to integrate multiple Air India systems,” Ramaswamy said.
Air India's contact centers receive 555,000 calls every month. With the help of Salesforce software technology, the company was able to improve contact center performance. Passenger numbers have doubled in two years, but the number of contact centers has not increased proportionately.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, CEO and Chairperson, Salesforce India, said in her keynote address, “AI will enhance each of you, your business and the solutions we deliver. AI has the power to improve productivity, profit margins and build better customer relationships. A survey of Indian executives shows that 94 percent believe this will happen.”
Air India's use of AI to cut call centre costs appears to be on track with what K Kritivasan, managing director and CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), had predicted.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Kritivasan said advances in AI will reduce the demand for call centers. “We are in a position where technology can predict calls and respond accordingly,” he said.
