At the same time, telecommunications companies were the first to launch projects to implement artificial intelligence (AI), including chatbots. The first attempts to send chatbots to work for the benefit of business on company websites were made back in the 2000s. These were text forms for obtaining reference information, which essentially duplicated the FAQ (frequently asked questions) section. In addition, it quickly became clear that the “smart” programs were not very smart in fact. They often worked incorrectly, did not understand what they were being asked, if the question was misspelled or imprecisely formulated, etc. The scope of application of bots was narrow, for example, answers on equipment settings, tariff plans or marketing campaigns.
But even within this framework, chatbots, issuing finland email list pre-prepared answers from tables, did not work perfectly. And operators quickly became disillusioned with them. telecom is associated with neural network and machine learning technologies, which began to conquer the world by the mid-2010s. By this time, almost all of the Big Three mobile operators announced the launch of smart assistants. For example, in 2014, Megafon, together with the Speech Technology Center (STC), trying to make it easier for clients to work with IVR (interactive voice response, interactive voice menu), launched the talking chatbot Elena. And if at first she handled the simplest calls, then already in 2016, using Yandex's developments in the field of NLU (natural language understanding), she began to communicate almost fully with clients over the phone.
And in 2018, after the launch of the Yandex.Dialogues platform, Elena was integrated into the Alice voice assistant environment, creating a complex communication tool for interacting with clients. In 2017, VimpelCom announced the launch of a chatbot that provides customers with information on tariffs and services. However, the scope of this solution was very limited: it only worked on the operator's website and in the My Beeline application. However, chatbots are created not only to tell customers about tariffs and debts. For example, the same Megafon developed a chatbot to support the Leningrad group's tour. Today, operators have launched more than one chatbot, teaching them to work in the most popular messengers.