Over half a million customer queries in the past seven months has been handled by Air Indias virtual agent - Maharaja

Using a virtual agent powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI), Air India announced on Friday that it had answered more than half a million customer inquiries in the last seven months, making it the first airline to do so. The Air India website provides travellers with a platform to look for information on a variety of subjects, including flight status, luggage allowance, and refunds, in addition to traditional methods like contacting the call centre.

Airlines across the globe are using AI to enhance the passenger experience. For example, airlines are using chatbots to assist with customer service. With AI-powered tools, IndiGo provides 24/7 self-service possibilities as well. Nonetheless, these employed many AI techniques, such as natural language processing. According to Air India, their generative AI programme produces far more accurate answers to a larger percentage of requests.

Since its introduction in March, Air India's virtual agent Maharaja—which is powered by Microsoft's Azure OpenAI service—has responded to more than 500,000 inquiries, the airline reported. About 6,000 requests in Hindi, English, French, and German are handled by it each day. According to the statement, "Maharaja automatically detects when a customer query needs more help, and it arranges a smooth handoff to Air India's contact centre agents." Approximately 15% of client requests nowadays do.

According to Air India, to enhance customer satisfaction in subsequent contacts, it is also utilising ChatGPT to assess complicated queries that it might not be able to respond to right away.