LIVE FROM MWC SHANGHAI 2024: Anna Yip, deputy CEO for Singapore consumer and CEO of business development at Singtel (pictured, right), highlighted the benefits AI brings in boosting the efficiency of its call centres and giving agents better tools to address inquiries. 

In Q&A with CCS Insight chairman Shaun Collins (pictured, left), Yip said it took some time to deploy the AI-powered customer support system, which can summarise, synthesise and highlight key issues by topic for staff.

“The idea is not about replacing jobs, it’s about augmenting efficiency and effectiveness,” she explained, adding it’s not just the pay, but people are no longer interested in certain jobs.

The operator is working to make call centre jobs more interesting in a long-term move to retain staff.

Yip said it is now using AI to support marketing communications to develop new campaigns and carry out faster testing. 

Singtel was one of the first operators in the world to deploy a standalone (SA) 5G network, rolling out the service across the city state in 2021. 

While its networks support auto making, chipmaking, ports and warehouses, Yip acknowledged those use cases are just the start. “There is a lot more innovation that needs to come.”

She believes the low-latency offered by SA networks are best suited for use cases on the enterprise side.

On the consumer side, she said users appreciate the higher speeds, “but we still need to have killer apps to create the wow factor. AR and VR apps are more niche and not mainstream.”