AT&T has introduced Ask AT&T, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform base on Open AI’s chatGPT.
Generative AI is an emerging form of AI that uses the patterns and structures it sees in the data to create – generate — content such as video, images and text. Ask AT&T’s initial mandate is to help AT&T employees do their jobs.
“Over the last several months, what’s known as ‘Generative AI’ has become a sensation and rightly so,” AT&T Chief Data Officer Andy Markus said in a blog post. “We’re super excited about it as well! In fact, I think it’s a transformational technology. Generative AI will do for businesses what the introduction of the PC and the internet did decades ago!”
Early use cases include network optimization; upgrading legacy software code and environments; customer support; providing quick and simple answers to HR questions and reducing employee meeting time by providing automated summaries and action items.
Ask AI is interoperable with other generative AI tools that are being developed, according to the post.
There are two broad areas of concern about AI. One is bad actors using these tools. The other, which is more pressing as generative AI becomes generally accessible, is the creation of misleading content.
Markus said that AT&T and Microsoft have “pressure tested” the dedicated Azure cloud environment to prevent customer data “leaking” into the public domain. He said that “counter-measures” are in place to identify and confront threats such as AI-created attacks.
AI is finding its way into telecom in other ways as well. Verizon, for example, offers a contact center service that uses AI to help customer service representatives.
