Vodafone Idea has announced the launch of “Vi Intelligence” an AI-driven solution created through a collaboration between Vodafone Idea and PwC India. The introduction of this solution is part of a growing trend for telecommunications providers to provide more than just basic connectivity services to enterprises.
The goal of this initiative is to create a Vi Intelligence Lab in Mumbai that will allow the two partners to develop, test, and scale business AI solutions for many different types of businesses.
Vodafone Idea’s digital infrastructure and telecommunication knowledge will be combined with PwC India’s capability to transform businesses through this program. Agentic AI, Assistive AI, Sovereign and Responsible AI are listed as some of the areas of focus for this program.
This program is reflective of an industry-wide movement among telecommunication providers to find business opportunities outside of standard connectivity offerings, such as cloud-based solutions, enterprise automation and digital transformation.
Why a telecom company is investing in AI
Telecommunications companies have vast and complicated operational systems that include network architecture, client service, invoicing, prevention of fraudulent activities, and enterprise communication.
The generation of large amounts of information through these operations requires the use of teams to operate technical processes across a number of different systems.
AI tools can aid companies in analyzing operational data, recognizing patterns, supporting their customer service teams, and automating routine administrative activities.
These applications may help improve internal operations of the telecom company, as well as the creation of products and services for its business clients.
The potential is not limited to telecommunications. Other industries such as finance (banks), manufacturing, retail, logistics and service-oriented professions have started exploring how they might use AI to lower their manual workload and provide better access to internal data.
Successful implementation of this new model of artificial intelligence (AI) will require a great deal more than simply adopting a new way of working. In addition to integrating AI into current business processes, companies need to define who can access data, track the effectiveness of the system, and teach their employees how to responsibly employ the technology.
The role of the Vi Intelligence Lab
The aim of the Vi Intelligence Lab is to create a facility that will enable the development and testing of AI solutions.
PwC India announced they would create a “Center of Excellence” in Mumbai to work with Vi.
The partnership will provide businesses with access to artificial intelligence professionals, start-ups, academic institutions, and other technology providers.
The company has several different areas of focus. One such area is incubation projects that are focused on addressing specific business issues. Rather than going straight to a full scale implementation of these solutions, the company will have an opportunity to try out ideas, see how well they perform, make adjustments based upon what they learn and then determine whether or not to implement them at a larger level.
The lab will be focused on developing the company’s own proprietary AI technologies, as well as addressing the company’s challenges in innovation and its efforts to train employees to have better skills.
The business can use these types of activities to find out which applications of AI will provide a return on investment (ROI) that can be measured, as opposed to applying AI to a business application just because there is a lot of hype about the technology.
Potential uses in different types of businesses include analyzing what people ask you about your products/services, helping your staff write reports or other documents, finding out when something goes wrong at work, and making decisions based on data.
The program does not, in and of itself, show us that we are realizing the above advantages on a large scale. What is shown will be based upon the type of project developed, its technical capabilities and how well the consumer integrates it into his/her daily routine.
Agentic AI and assistive AI
The Initiative is focused on the identification of two of the main elements of the Initiative, namely Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Assistive AI.
Generally speaking, assistive AI can assist humans with completing many different types of tasks including but not limited to; summarizing large volumes of data (documents), locating specific information from various sources (searching), and developing initial drafts of potential answers (drafting). However, humans remain the final decision makers regarding the output generated by the AI system and determining the appropriate course of action based on that output.
In contrast to standard AI, agentic AI has the potential to allow systems to complete multiple, related tasks toward a specific goal. Depending on what is required for each use case, agents can interact with software programs, gather data, and carry out predetermined actions.
Ultimately, these types of systems may ultimately assist organizations in coordinating their workflow processes, which are presently dependent on employees transferring data from one application to another.
However, greater autonomy creates new potential problems. Error-prone output, too much access and weak management of the process may create the risk of creating issues throughout a series of inter-connected systems.
Therefore, businesses that use agentic artificial intelligence (AI) should establish clear guidelines regarding what their AI systems can perform, when AI systems can take an action without human authorization, and how the activities performed by the AI systems are recorded and evaluated.
Responsible and sovereign AI
The third pillar of the AI framework is called “Sovereign and Responsible AI”. This area focuses on issues related to how AI is governed, controlled by its data, and deployed in a safe manner.
In regulated sectors, organizations will need to know what information they have, who can access it and the regulations that apply when processing sensitive data.
Responsible AI practices include evaluating whether an AI is reliable, reducing the number of incorrect outputs generated by AI, protecting the intellectual property created through AI, and holding people responsible for errors made by automated systems.
Vi states that the initiative will utilize their GRACIE Responsible AI Framework to provide guidance for use of AI, as well as encourage responsible and safe use of AI.
The effectiveness of these frameworks is determined by their implementation. Businesses will need to establish performance measures for the systems once they have been deployed, as well as determine if the systems continue to fulfill operational and regulatory needs.
What the partnership could mean for Indian businesses
The project is a further illustration of how telecommunication operators are positioning themselves as possible partners in the digital transformation of businesses.
Indian businesses can benefit from the availability of specialty development and consulting support by testing AI applications without having to build all of the parts of the application on their own.
For small businesses, there is a possibility that they would prefer to implement gradual solutions if the cost and technology required to do so are feasible.
Meanwhile, large organizations can concentrate on integrating the software into their current systems, the security needs for the software, and automating complicated processes.
Competitors for this industry will probably include: telecom providers, cloud companies, software development firms and consulting businesses.
In the end, companies are going to evaluate their use of artificial intelligence (AI) based upon how effective it is in terms of reducing costs, improving customer service, saving employee’s time, or creating new sources of revenue.
Vi Intelligence is an example of how Vi is growing its business technologies. In addition, the success of Vi Intelligence as a long term strategy will be based upon the solutions that Vi Intelligence creates, which organizations use these solutions, and the benefits that each customer receives.