Air India Is The World’s First Airline Where A Robot Will Answer Your Questions

The Indian flag carrier has successfully become the world’s first airline to introduce a generative AI virtual agent, Maharaja. Air India launched the AI agent in a testing capacity in March earlier this year and claims that since its launch, it answers more than 6,000 questions daily across four languages, Hindi, English, German, and French.

Maharaja has been recruited to help answer up to 1,300 simple questions across Air India, such as your flight status, baggage entitlements, restrictions of items onboard and in your checked bags, alongside check-in procedures, your frequent flyer status, the status of ticket refunds, and any last-minute flight changes.

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Answers in 80 seconds

According to Air India, Maharaja has answered most of the questions within 80 seconds and suggests that only 15% of queries must be transferred to ‘human’ Air India contact center staff. Introduced in a ploy to reduce the number of mundane queries coming into the airline’s calls center, it is hoped to provide more capacity for Air India agents to focus on more complex itineraries and higher-value interactions with passengers.

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Air India’s Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Satya Ramaswamy, elaborated on the vision for Maharaja and what it means for the airline’s customers:

“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.”

Read more: The History Behind India’s Flag Carrier: Air India.

Behind the scenes, the airline partnered with global tech company Microsoft to engage with their Azure OpenAI service to create Maharaja, with Marco Casalaina, Vice President, AI Platform, Microsoft reiterating the excitement of working with the Indian carrier:

“We are pleased to see Air India’s successful deployment of their AI-powered agent, Maharaja, and the use of Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to provide a personalized and relevant customer experience. We believe that this is the beginning of a new era of customer service, and we look forward to seeing more organizations use the power of Generative AI and our AI-optimized Azure cloud to provide a seamless and efficient customer experience.”

Photo: Air India

A new generation of Air India

It is no secret that with TATA’s involvement, Air India looks to rebrand itself as a leading international carrier. An astonishing 500+ aircraft order confirmed earlier this year will mean that by March 2024, the airline hopes to add over 400 weekly departures, of which 200 are destined for domestic services, alongside 200 to popular international destinations.

With the future looking bright for the Star Alliance member, investing in high-tech, generative AI systems will further enhance the airline’s improved customer service-focused initiatives.

Sources: Business Today