Apple’s support service is generally very well-regarded, but it’s not unheard of for customers to have a bad experience. Now, it appears that Apple is taking steps to improve the support its AppleCare advisors provide, all with a helping hand from artificial intelligence (AI).
The idea is that Apple is going to outfit its support staff with an in-house AI chatbot called Ask. According to MacRumors, this will be able to respond to queries from Apple staff with appropriate solutions to customer problems, and it’s something we’ve seen reports of before.
For example, an AppleCare staff member could enter a query such as “A customer is unable to update their device to iOS 13.7. What can be done?” In response, Ask could provide a list of possible solutions that can be relayed on to the customer. Ask will apparently be trained on Apple’s own internal knowledge base, reducing the likelihood of it 'hallucinating' false information by mixing in inaccurate data from external sources – a common problem for AI chatbots.
The report from MacRumors claims that Apple’s support staff will be encouraged to use Ask before relying on more traditional search methods or asking a supervisor for help. That in turn could help to speed up the response time for customers, meaning less time spent on hold and, hopefully, a better overall experience.
The AI iPhone
At the moment, MacRumors says that the Ask tool is still in the pilot phase. “Apple said it plans to make the tool available to more advisors in the future, after collecting feedback,” the report continues.
Those Apple employees who do have access to Ask can rate its responses as “helpful” or “unhelpful” and can also ask up to five follow-up questions in order to get more detail, if required.
This is not the first time we’ve heard about Apple’s AI plans. In fact, company CEO Tim Cook has been very forthright regarding Apple’s aspirations, saying that the firm has been working on AI tools for years and that we will soon see the fruits of that labor. And according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, Apple could debut its generative AI tools as soon as June 2024 in iOS 18.
That all paints an intriguing picture for the future. With tools like Ask and AI cleverness built into iOS, Apple fans might soon see improvements to their devices and the ways they use them, whether or not they need help from Apple staff.
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