Air India becomes world’s first airline to launch AI virtual agent called Maharaja

Air India has achieved a significant milestone with the introduction of ‘Maharaja,’ the first-ever Generative AI virtual agent in the world. Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI service, Maharaja was launched in March 2023 and has successfully handled over 500,000 customer queries. Currently, it efficiently manages more than 6,000 daily inquiries in Hindi, English, French, and German languages.

The Maharaja AI Agent efficiently manages a diverse range of customer inquiries, covering 1,300 topics related to flight information, baggage policies, check-in procedures, and various other areas. With proficiency in four languages, it promptly addresses over 80 percent of daily queries, while seamlessly redirecting the remaining 15 percent to Air India’s contact center for additional support.

Air India leverages the power of generative AI technology to effectively utilize ChatGPT for the analysis of intricate inquiries, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience during subsequent interactions. This methodology enables the airline’s latest customer service platform to constantly learn and enhance its capabilities, effectively adapting to the subtleties of natural language. Air India adopts a comprehensive approach that combines different conventional machine learning techniques with generative AI, ensuring the delivery of an engaging consumer-grade experience while implementing measures to prevent any biased or harmful language within its conversational AI system.

In contrast to chatbots that rely on rules or keywords, generative AI solutions have the ability to understand the intention and context of user queries, resulting in the generation of natural and logical responses. This not only improves user satisfaction but also decreases the need for human involvement by automating tasks such as booking, cancellation, and confirmation. By automating these routine tasks, human agents are freed up to concentrate on more complex and valuable interactions.

Air India has ambitious plans for the next few months as it prepares to introduce cutting-edge features powered by patent-pending technologies. These advancements will bring about a truly innovative user experience, completely transforming the way customers engage with AI agents. By combining both textual and graphical interactions, Air India aims to streamline customer interactions and potentially expedite the entire process.

After being nurtured for over two years, these groundbreaking innovations seek to enhance the existing AI agent by incorporating data-driven deep-personalization capabilities. This will effectively turn the AI agent into a reliable personal assistant that caters to all air travel requirements. The expanded capabilities of the AI agent will include providing travel inspiration and offering a seamless booking experience. Furthermore, Air India is actively working on incorporating support for Indian languages, ensuring that a wider range of customers can benefit from these advancements.