Virtual AI agent – Air India is the first airline in the world to effectively deploy a Generative AI virtual agent. This ‘Maharaja’ agent is powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service. The project entered the testing phase in March 2023. According to Air India, Maharaja has answered over 500,000 customer queries and presently handles over 6,000 queries per day in four languages: Hindi, English, French, and German.
Maharaja handles over 1,300 client concerns, including flight status, baggage allowances, packing restrictions, check-in procedures, frequent flyer awards, airport lounge access, flight adjustments, and refunds.
Over 80% of the 6,000-plus inquiries sent each day were answered in seconds by Maharaja. Maharaja automatically recognizes and transmits the remaining 15% of queries that require additional assistance to Air India’s contact center professionals.
“We are dedicated to providing the best possible service and experience to our valued guests across channels,” said Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Air India. We also want to be extremely responsive to changes in their preferences. We are progressively seeing a decisive movement in guest preferences to use chat engagements to receive the information and support they need fast and directly as opposed to exploring numerous web pages with the emergence of Large Language Model driven Generative AI capabilities.”
Virtual AI agent
“We are dedicated to providing the best possible service and experience to our valued guests across channels,” said Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Air India. We also want to be extremely responsive to changes in their preferences. We are progressively seeing a decisive movement in guest preferences to use chat engagements to receive the information and support they need fast and directly as opposed to exploring numerous web pages with the emergence of Large Language Model driven Generative AI capabilities.”
For simple requests, the new AI-powered chatbot will eliminate the need for human participation. It also aids in the automation of repetitive and mundane operations such as booking, cancellation, and confirmation. This new service, according to the business, will free up bandwidth for human agents to focus on more complicated and value-added conversations.
Air India has implemented an approach that combines classic machine learning techniques with Generative AI. In addition, the company claims to have put in place protections to prevent biased or damaging words from invading its conversational AI system.
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