Verizon boosts sales with AI assistant developed by Google - Reuters

Investing.com -- Verizon (NYSE:VZ) has reported a significant increase in sales following the implementation of an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for its customer service representatives, according to a report from Reuters. The AI assistant, developed using Google models, has not only reduced call times but also enabled representatives to focus on selling products to customers.

The AI assistant provides on-screen support to customer service agents, aiding them in finding the right answers to customer inquiries. Verizon began deploying these AI features in July 2024 and fully scaled them by January. According to Sampath Sowmyanarayan, CEO of Verizon's consumer group, sales through the company's 28,000-person service team have increased by nearly 40% since the AI's deployment.

Sowmyanarayan stated that the company is "doing reskilling in real time from customer care agents to selling agents." The announcement came during Google Cloud's annual conference, offering a positive example of AI implementation amidst concerns from some public market investors about excessive AI spending without significant returns.

While many potential enterprise customers are still deciding on the extent of their adoption of generative AI technologies, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian expressed that compared to other initiatives, Verizon's AI deployment is on an "enormous scale." Kurian's unit contributed $43 billion to Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s $350 billion revenue in 2024.

Verizon's new internal software was developed by feeding nearly 15,000 internal documents into Google's flagship Gemini large language model. This approach stands in contrast to companies like the Swedish payments group Klarna, which have chosen to use AI to replace customer service staff. Sowmyanarayan noted that there are "much easier ways" to reduce costs.

Verizon primarily collaborates with two cloud providers: Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) for application deployment and computing infrastructure, and Google Cloud for analytics and AI. The company chose Google over other competitors due to its ability to deploy AI offerings to tens of thousands of individuals, Sowmyanarayan explained.

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