AirAsia is closing its voice call centers and replacing them with a chatbot.
The chatbot, named Ava (AirAsia Virtual Allstar) is powered by artificial intelligence and has been busy handling some 50,000 messages daily this year.
The controversial announcement was made by AirAsia’s client director of happiness, Adam Geneave at the annual Salesforce Dream force Conference.
Geneave said: “We are very proud of our chatbot Ava, she has done an amazing job for our guests. Through Ava you can book a flight, change your reservation and she can answer hundreds of questions.”
Ava doesn’t work alone, however. The friendly bot is integrated into the company’s Salesforce platform so when Ava can’t help a customer, he or she is transferred to Salesforce live chat.
Geneave admits the decision to close its call centers is controversial. He said: “No one wants to wait in line in a voice call center anymore. Alexa and Siri, they’ve really brought out the voice AI and it’s very clear that voice AI is the way of the future.”
