Oracle Adds to Utilities Customer Platform

Oracle has added artificial intelligence-powered call summarization and tagging capabilities in the Oracle Utilities Customer Platform, available at no additional cost to utilities using Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service.

With the new AI capabilities in Oracle's customer platform, utilities will be empowered with built-in listening tools that aid in customer interactions for proactive service by better anticipating customer needs before they arise and foreseeing potential issues or opportunities. The new AI capabilities are will add call tags for each call to note billing issues, service interruptions, and other inquiries unique to each call. Utilities can choose their own set of categories, make changes any time, and track data, such as seasonal or temporary changes in call volume to understand the impact and underlying cause.

The new AI capabilities in the Oracle Customer Platform are also planned to support the following:

• Utility industry-specific language and jargon recognition for contextually relevant call summaries.
• Personally identifiable information (PII) protection in call summaries.
• Obscenity and noise filtering.

"Utility call centers are under constant pressure to handle heavy call volume and provide the fast, accurate service and experiences customers expect, but they have lacked the real-time tools required to be successful," said James Steadman, global head of customer product strategy for Oracle Utilities, in a statement. "These new AI features are planned to empower agents with essential capabilities and deep insights to understand and proactively address customer issues faster than ever. AI can be a game-changer for customer operations. If we can help save 20 percent to 30 percent of spending on customer operations annually (estimated at $124 billion per year industry-wide), that could result in up to $37 billion in savings across the industry."