PARTNER CONTENT: Powerful AI capabilities can transform operator communications services, opening the way for innovative consumer experiences through New Calling technology, experts from Huawei and iFLYTEK explained.
In an interview at the WinWin Live studio, iFLYTEK vice president of cloud business unit Zhou Chuanfu and Chen Haiyong, president of CS&IMS Domain, Cloud Core Network Product Line at Huawei, provided a glimpse into how AI is already helping operators in this emerging area.
“With the support of AI, carriers and business partners can carry out deeper cooperation, offering personalised services and tailored plans, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty,” Zhou said, adding “AI can add a lot of imagination to future innovation”.
iFLYTEK technology integrates with operator systems to provide user service entrances, open ecosystem operation platforms and network capability platforms.
Zhou highlighted by using plug-ins on the network side there was an opportunity for “rapid incubation of innovative scenarios”. Capabilities possible include automatic speech recognition, translation and text-to-speech, LLM applications, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants.
Chen noted operators have a “massive user base” with the phone call still a vital part of the service they provide, citing statistics from the Chinese market.
Here, he explained, the largest OTT player had around 60 million monthly active users compared to the 1 billion-strong base China Mobile has. The operator handles 8 billion minutes of calls each day.
For customer service queries, 87 per cent of the operator’s users call its 10086 helpline, showing “making a phone call is still the preferred choice for users”.
From AI Empowered to AI Native
“With a huge user base and massive calling traffic, operators can make full use of industry AI technologies to upgrade their communications products,” Chen added.
Here, he highlighted the potential to improve the calling experience and communication efficiency using capabilities which already exist within the industry. For example, to provide users with simultaneous interpretation and AI generated content (AIGC) digital avatars.
This phase he defined as AI Empowered.
The expert added operators could then further build on “an open industry ecosystem and make full use of the latest large models”.
“The network can invoke industry application tools based on users’ requirements and preference to complete multiple complex tasks at one time during the single call,” he added. “This phase can be called AI Native.”
Using an example of planning a business or leisure trip, the expert stated historically this required numerous interactions to book hotels and flights. Whereas by using an intelligent calling agent this could be quickly completed using “relevant external enterprise service agents, based on user needs”.
In this use case operators are able to provide closed loop services at each step regardless of whether dealing with an AI agent or human.
Intelligent innovation
Zhou agreed AI was able to reshape the “value of communication service entrances” with the biggest challenge how to derive more value to users through these.
“Take New Calling incubated by iFLYTEK, China Mobile and Huawei, as an example. New Calling frees the traditional mobile phone dial pad and upgrades it to an interactive intelligent service entrance. The number of users has reached tens of millions”.
He explained through his company’s voice processing and translation services it can provide real-time multilingual transcription and translation during calls and provide precise synopses of the discussion.
The technology is integrated with a 5G-A intelligent core network to deliver applications such as cross-border commerce and barrier-free communication for those with hearing difficulties.
Another use case is the provision of prompts to users on weather and traffic alerts.
Zhou highlighted the technology could enable intelligent innovation across various industries.
New Calling
In China and beyond, New Calling is gaining traction as operators seek to use 5G and 5G-A infrastructure to deliver next-generation services to their user bases.
Applications enabled include ultra-high definition video and voice calls, content sharing, fun video calls, translation and intelligent customer service.
To help develop valuable use cases Huawei engages with leading operators across the globe.
In China the vendor is working closely with China Mobile on expansion of its New Calling service to encompass further innovative services with the aim of adding to the operator’s 40 million users for the technology across its network.
Chen noted the company had “also developed commercial New Calling services with leading operators in the Middle East and Latin America”.
Through joint efforts with industry partners, Huawei’s New Calling solution has been interconnected with third-party translation systems in the industry to achieve real-time translation from Arabic to English, and from Portuguese to English
Chen Haiyong, President of CS&IMS Domain, Cloud Core Network Product Line Huawei
An example in the enterprise segment is the provision of a “visualised voice calling service” designed for call centres.
Chen said this “greatly improves the efficiency and experience of customer service calling,” noting the upgrade did not require “any addition or change to the enterprise network”.
For those operators that are yet to deploy New Calling, Chen highlighted the requirement for a “fundamental VoLTE network with simplified architecture, ultimate experience, high stability and reliability” as a first step.
“Huawei’s leading single voice core, single voice roaming, single voice insight and single voice bypass solutions can help operators’ ultimate fundamental voice network in this phase. Then we can implement New Calling by adding the new network elements,” he said.
Service promotion
Once deployed, Chen noted the promotion of related services should consider the specific market.
“In the ToC service domain it is recommended to introduce services that do not depend on terminal capability upgrade, such as AI simultaneous interpretation, to quickly mature the service operation network of New Calling,” he added.
Chen advised services such as visualised voice calling and personalised digital avatar can be introduced quickly to increase service revenue from the user.
“In the ToB service field the visualised menu can be introduced to optimise the original DTMF interaction experience,” the expert noted, stating visualised voice calling could be applied to enterprise contact centres for service promotion or advertisement purposes.
“The prosperity of the New Calling industry requires the joint effort of the whole industry including terminal manufacturers, network equipment vendors, large model suppliers, and application developers,” Chen summarised. “With the joint effort of everyone, the New Calling industry will certainly have a bright future”.