Vodafone has announced the roll-out of SuperTOBi, its new customer-focused Generative AI (GenAI) driven virtual assistant, across Europe. Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI, SuperTOBi can understand and respond faster to complex customer enquiries, surpassing traditional chatbots. The service has been introduced in Italy and Portugal and will soon be available in Germany and Turkey. Other markets will follow later this year. SuperTOBi is an upgraded version of Vodafone's existing chatbot, TOBi, which already supports customers in 13 European and African countries, and comprehends 11 different languages. This initiative is part of Vodafone's comprehensive transformation of the customer experience, supported by a €140 million investment this financial year. With the ability to interpret entire sentences and phrases, SuperTOBi surpasses the limitations of existing chatbot technologies, which typically provide simple answers based on a few keywords.

It engages in more natural conversation with customers, offering a personalized experience and automatically transferring to a human agent when it cannot answer a question. SuperTOBi has already shown positive results for Vodafone Portugal customers, increasing the first-time resolution rate from 15% to 60% and improving online net promoter scores by 14 points to 64 points. Other customer journeys, such as billing, will also be integrated. In addition to SuperTOBi, Vodafone has introduced SuperAgent, an enhanced bot assistant used by its customer care employees. SuperAgent, based on Microsoft Azure OpenAI's Agent Copilot solution, helps human agents quickly search for answers to complex queries or multiple questions. It also provides agents with a summary of online customer conversations in Ireland, eliminating the need for customers to repeat themselves. By relying solely on Vodafone's companywide and private knowledge database, SuperAgent ensures the information is reliable. Vodafone has also improved the search facility on its customer-facing websites with SuperSearch.