Air India's AI "Maharaja" will Introduce More Features
Air India has achieved a historic milestone by introducing the world's first deployment of a Generative AI virtual agent named 'Maharaja,' as stated by the airline. This innovative agent is driven by Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service.
The initiative was launched during the trial period in March 2023. According to Air India, Maharaja has addressed over 500,000 customer inquiries and presently manages over 6,000 queries daily in Hindi, English, French, and German.
Owned by the Tata Group, the airline is employing ChatGPT to scrutinize intricate queries beyond its immediate capabilities. This strategy is designed to improve customer experiences in subsequent engagements and contribute to refining the virtual agent's proficiency in understanding natural language.
The virtual agent, named 'Maharaja,' manages a diverse array of customer queries across 1,300 areas. These encompass questions regarding flight status, baggage allowances, packing restrictions, check-in procedures, frequent flyer awards, airport lounge access, flight changes, and refund inquiries. The virtual agent has been developed to adequately answer these queries in Hindi, English, French, and German.
A press release from Air India said "Of the 6,000-plus questions received each day, over 80 percent are successfully answered in seconds. About 15 percent of customer queries today require additional assistance, and Maharaja recognizes this automatically and orchestrates a seamless handoff to Air India's contact centre agents."
Satya Ramaswamy, the Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Air India said that after the emergence of large language model-driven generative AI capabilities, it is increasingly seeing a definitive shift in guest preferences to use chat interactions to get the information and support they need quickly.
He added, "We are dedicated to providing the best possible service and experience to our valued guests across channels. We also want to be very responsive to their changing preferences. After the emergence of Large Language Model-driven Generative AI capabilities, we are increasingly seeing a definitive shift in guest preferences to use chat interactions to get the information and support they need quickly and directly as compared to browsing several web pages.”
The release has also mentioned some of the plans Air India has in store for the coming months, "This includes a novel user experience that changes the way customers interact with AI agents with a combination of textual and graphical interactions that can potentially further speed up customer interactions... Air India also plans to enhance the current AI agent with data-driven deep personalization capabilities."
The implementation of Generative AI solutions at Air India plays a crucial role in automating routine tasks such as booking, cancellation, and confirmation. This automation enables human agents to focus on more intricate and value-driven interactions. As a full-service carrier, Air India is actively pursuing an ambitious expansion strategy.