Call O2 and talk to a robot

Mobile network O2 will soon encourage customers with enquiries to phone an automated service powered by artificial intelligence, rather than speak to a member of staff at a call centre.

The network’s Spanish owner Telefonica demonstrated the voicerecognition technology, called Aura, at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Customers will receive automatic answers to questions about their account, such as how much mobiledata allowance they have left or what their next bill will be. They’ll also be able to add and cancel services.

Telefonica is confident that customers will increasingly prefer to get answers through an automated service than from a person.

The company’s boss José Maria Alvarez-pallete said that Aura will use cognitive intelligence to ‘learn’ more about individual customers. He hopes this will lead to customers trusting the service, eventually talking to it “in a more natural and easy way”.

Aura, which is expected to launch in the UK next year, will allow O2 to make huge savings in its customer-service operation, raising more concerns about robots taking human jobs.

In February, a report from the think-tank Reform said that computer systems could replace 250,000 public sector jobs in the next 15 years. This prediction includes the loss of 120,000 jobs in healthcare.