Air India Adopts GenAI Virtual Agent Maharaja by Azure OpenAI Service

Air India's new Generative AI virtual agent, named 'Maharaja' and powered by Azure OpenAI service, has effectively addressed more than 500,000 customer queries since its pilot launch in March 2023. It handles over 6,000 daily queries in four languages, the virtual agent has proven to be a valuable asset in customer interactions.

Maharaja AI Agent by Air India adeptly handles an array of customer queries spanning 1,300 categories, including flight status, baggage allowances, packing restrictions, check-in procedures, frequent flyer awards, airport lounge access, flight changes, refunds, and various other topics. This versatile virtual agent provides comprehensive assistance, enhancing the customer experience across a broad spectrum of travel-related inquiries.

Catering to global guests, Maharaja communicates fluently in Hindi, English, French, and German. Addressing 6,000-plus daily questions, it swiftly resolves over 80%, with the remaining 15% seamlessly transitioning to Air India's contact center agents for further assistance. This multilingual, efficient virtual agent ensures prompt and effective responses while effortlessly facilitating handoffs for a comprehensive customer support experience.

Dr. Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Air India, said, “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.” 

“We have used several patent-pending innovations in our AI agent Maharaja with a combination of traditional machine learning techniques and the latest in Generative AI to provide a pleasing and effective experience for our customers. Many more innovations are in the pipeline and will be made live in the months to come.” 

Maximizing the potential of generative AI, Air India integrates ChatGPT to analyze intricate queries, enhancing future customer interactions. This approach enables continuous learning, refining the system's natural language understanding. Air India strategically combines various machine learning methods with Generative AI for a top-notch consumer experience. Moreover, the airline implements safeguards to detect and prevent biased or harmful language, ensuring a secure and responsible application of conversational AI in its customer service operations.

Diverging from rule-based or keyword-centric chatbots, Generative AI solutions grasp the user's intent and context, producing authentic and logical responses. This amplifies user satisfaction by minimizing the necessity for human intervention. Additionally, it streamlines routine tasks like booking, cancellation, and confirmation, liberating human agents to dedicate their bandwidth to intricate, value-added interactions, ultimately optimizing efficiency and enhancing the overall user experience.

“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,” said Marco Casalaina, Vice President, AI Platform, Microsoft. 

In the upcoming months, Air India is set to introduce a range of cutting-edge features propelled by patent-pending technologies. These innovations encompass a groundbreaking user experience that revolutionizes customer interaction with AI agents through a blend of textual and graphical interfaces, potentially expediting customer engagement. Some of these advancements have undergone over two years of incubation. Air India further aims to augment the existing AI agent with data-driven deep-personalization capabilities, transforming it into a reliable personal assistant catering to diverse air travel needs. The enhanced AI agent will boast features such as travel inspiration and seamless booking experiences, with plans to incorporate support for additional Indian languages.