T-Mobile will collaborate with Google Cloud to use Google's data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to deliver personalized customer care. T-Mobile said that it plans to use Google Cloud to better analyze and understand customer needs and improve customer experience across different touchpoints.
Specifically, T-Mobile will use Google Cloud’s BigQuery and BigQuery ML to predict usage trends and identify and respond to customer opinions. In addition, the carrier will use Google Cloud’s Dialogflow and Content Center AI to interact with customers through AI-powered conversations. This is intended to speed up the company’s customer care and resolve customer service problems faster.
T-Mobile’s EVP and chief digital officer Marcus East said in a statement that the company will work with Google Cloud to “address trends in consumer behavior, drive deeper relationships, and evaluate our customer-first approach.”
But this isn’t T-Mobile’s first deal with a hyperscaler to help its customer care department. In 2018 T-Mobile talked about using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its machine learning predictive capabilities to provide its customer service agents with contextual information in real-time to help them resolve customer issues more quickly.
In addition, T-Mobile used Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth to speed up its data labeling with AI and produce more accurate models.
It’s unclear if the Google Cloud deal is in addition to T-Mobile’s new AWS collaboration or if the Google Cloud deal replaces the AWS partnership. However, Roy Chua, founder and principal of AvidThink said that it’s not unusual for wireless operators to work with multiple cloud players. “Every carrier will work with multiple cloud providers,” he said. “That’s the reality.”
Chua also noted that it’s not clear if this Google Cloud collaboration will be used for enterprise customers or consumers or both. “It’s AI-driven customer care,” Chua said. “And it’s not the first time T-Mobile has worked with an AI platform from a hyperscaler.”
Hyperscalers are becoming more entwined with wireless operators and are involved in many parts of the wireless network. Verizon has edge partnerships with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. AT&T is in the process of shifting its 5G mobile core network to Microsoft Azure and Dish Network is in the midst of building a cloud-native 5G network and will host its 5G core and RAN on AWS.