Telus shareholders will likely be very happy today as the Canadian carrier adds a generative AI chatbot to its support page.
This tool allows customers to ask the AI for help, and it presents them with the answer or a link to a pre-written Telus support page. During a brief test, the chatbot worked as expected but was only able to answer general equations related to its network and services. You can’t use it to ask personal questions about your account, so in the end, it feels like a slightly smarter but also more restrictive search.
When it gets something right, it can be quite handy, but I needed to put in a few different questions before it told me how to install an eSIM into an iPhone that’s already past the initial setup screens.
Telus’ press release for the feature says, “Telus’ GenAI tool has advanced natural language processing capabilities and accesses more than 1,000 customer support articles to deliver quick and intelligent answers to many commonly-asked questions, providing efficient and round-the-clock support.”
To me, it doesn’t really seem like an AI chatbot as much as it’s just a really targeted search. For instance, whenever you search for something, you aren’t given a plaintext response. Rather, you get what appears to be a copy/paste excerpt from a Telsu support page. This is still helpful, but calling it generative AI feels a little extra.
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