Telstra is Australia's leading telecommunications and technology company, offering a full range of communications services nationwide and beyond. Renowned for ongoing innovation, Telstra's frontline staff and customer service agents must maintain a vast technical knowledge base to address increasingly complex customer needs. To empower its workforce and enhance customer experience, Telstra turned to generative AI.

• Telstra's customer service agents faced information overload, with complex systems and knowledge bases leading to long call handling times and inconsistent customer experiences
• High rates of repeat customer contacts indicated poor first-contact resolution and inefficiencies
• The company needed to empower agents to resolve issues faster, reduce operational costs, and improve customer satisfaction

• One Sentence Summary Tool: Uses generative AI to automatically summarize customer interactions, providing agents with instant context for ongoing cases
• Ask Telstra Solution: An AI-powered assistant that delivers real-time, context-aware support, surfacing relevant information and recommended actions to agents during live customer interactions
• Both tools are built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, leveraging large language models (LLMs) fine-tuned on Telstra's proprietary data and integrated into existing customer service workflows

• Azure OpenAI Service provides enterprise-grade security, scalability, and compliance
• LLMs are trained on Telstra's internal knowledge base and customer service data, ensuring relevance and accuracy
• AI tools are embedded directly into agent desktops and customer service platforms, enabling seamless workflow adoption
• Feedback loops from agents are used to refine and improve AI model performance

• Change Management: Overcame initial employee resistance through comprehensive training and clear communication, positioning AI as a "copilot" rather than a replacement
• Data Privacy & Security: Ensured all customer data was protected, leveraging Azure's security features and Telstra's own governance frameworks
• Customization: Required significant effort to fine-tune LLMs for Telstra-specific terminology, processes, and compliance requirements

• 90% of employees use the One Sentence Summary tool
• 84% of customer service agents use the Ask Telstra solution
• 20% reduction in follow-up customer contacts, indicating improved first-contact resolution
• Agents resolve customer issues faster, with less time spent searching for information
• Improved job satisfaction among agents, as AI reduces repetitive tasks and cognitive load
• AI tools support over 1,000 agents, handling millions of customer interactions annually

Kim Krogh Andersen, Group Executive, Product & Technology, Telstra:

Glynn, AI Team, Telstra:

Green, Customer Service Leadership, Telstra:

• High adoption and employee buy-in are critical for realizing AI's value
• AI should augment, not replace, human agents—leading to better outcomes for both employees and customers
• Continuous feedback and model refinement are essential for sustained success
• Strong data governance and privacy are non-negotiable, especially in regulated industries
• Strategic partnerships (e.g., with Microsoft) accelerate deployment and maximize business impact

🐯 Tiger Takeaway:

Telstra cracked the code on AI-powered customer service by focusing on human augmentation, not replacement. Their 20% reduction in callbacks isn't just a nice metric—it's proof that AI can transform your most challenging operational bottlenecks into competitive advantages. The lesson? Stop thinking about AI as a threat to your workforce and start seeing it as their secret weapon.

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