Cristina de la Cruz

The implementation of Aura, Telefónica's Artificial Intelligence, in Spain, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Germany has revolutionised the way customers interact with the company. Currently, and depending on the country, users can talk to Aura through devices, applications, WhatsApp and Facebook. The unstoppable growth of Artificial Intelligence has managed to optimise our navigation, facilitate our access to information and improve the way we communicate, radically changing our technology consumption. In the case of Telefónica, thanks to Aura, the customers' experience has evolved in such a way that companies like Movistar (Spain), Vivo (Brazil) and o2 (United Kingdom and Germany) have incorporated Aura as a virtual assistant to simplify communication and make interaction with the services they provide to their customers easier. Aura is able to meet all kind of user demands, not only by responding unidirectionally to voice commands, but by anticipating customer requests. In this sense, Ana Molina, expert in experience design and research of Aura in Telefónica, explains the possibilities offered by Aura to improve the contact point with the customer: QUOTE: “Through models and algorithms that calculate patterns, inferences can be made to know when users will run out of data, what is the most appropriate rate for their circumstances, or what is the next game or movie they will want to watch. Like this, Aura can give user-specific answers”. The constant progress of natural language processing (NLP) systems, together with the evolution and penetration of smartphones and smart devices, have led to a greater presence of virtual assistants. This is what Aura can do as a virtual assistant for users in the four countries where it is available. Talk to Aura through different devices in Spain In Spain, Aura is natively implemented in devices such as Movistar Home and Movistar+ Voice Remote Control. This allows users to access a wide range of Movistar services. Everything from using the functionalities available in Movistar Home, controlling the Movistar+ television or opening the Living Apps can be done by voice. In addition to talking to Aura through these devices, users can interact with the virtual assistant through the Movistar+ App to control Movistar+ content. Talk to Aura in Brazil: a multi-channel experience Brazil is the country in which the use of Aura is more widespread, since Vivo's Artificial Intelligence is present in more than 20 channels, such as: WhatsApp, Meu Vivo's applications, Facebook, the website of Vivo and the Call Center. Through these channels, approximately 40 million queries per month are registered, most of them through WhatsApp. This instant messaging channel has positioned itself as the reference channel for making queries to Aura. In the channels where Aura is present, customers can interact in writing or by voice, making personalized queries about their bill, data consumption, balance or recharge, activate promotions or ask about their contracted products. Another channel in which the integration of Aura in Brazil stands out is the Cognitive Call Center, in which Aura offers personalized telephone service and responds, fundamentally, to queries from prepaid users and Control customers. Ask Aura in the UK through the o2 website and the My o2 app In the United Kingdom, Aura is available under the o2 brand in the help section of the commercial website. Aura responds in a generic way to the questions that users may raise regarding data usage, WiFi settings, the location of the nearest o2 store or inquiries related to services and promotions. Aura is also available as a virtual assistant in the My o2 App, where users can receive personalized answers related to data consumption, monthly bills, or the available balance. Aura guides your Facebook and web queries through an authenticated user in Germany In Germany, users can ask generic questions from O2's Facebook account, which Aura answers automatically. However, the best way to take advantage of the virtual assistant is through the O2 website, as users can not only ask generic questions, but make personalised queries about their available balance and the rate they have contracted. They are also able to make a recharge or access their bill information immediately. All this thanks to the recent launch on the country's commercial website, where users can access Aura with an authenticated user so that the virtual assistant can answer their queries. Thanks to the development and implementation of Aura in these four countries, it has been demonstrated that Telefónica is meeting the objective of improving customers' digital lives, simplifying their relationship with the company thanks to artificial intelligence.

Telefónica has been introducing technology into its customers’ homes for years, and now it is taking a step further by implementing Artificial Intelligence at home, through Movistar Home and Movistar Living Apps. An entire ecosystem of devices and services that work through Aura, Telefónica’s Artificial Intelligence. Movistar Living Apps are new experiences developed internally or by third parties that will enrich the way users make use of technology in their homes. They can be accessed through the television, the Movistar Home device, or the remote control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6tm8Gwz280 Thanks to Movistar Living Apps, Telefónica is opening up a path of digital transformation through what they have named the “Aura Ecosystem”, the new technological platform for the home in which external partners can develop their Movistar Living Apps to offer new services related to home automation, travel, shopping, etc. We turn homes into an intelligent and open to new experiences computer, creating unique moments with just one voice command. Chema Alonso, Telefonica's CDO Some of the following partners have already joined this new experience, which can be used through Movistar Home and television, for example: Air Europa: Aura will help users check in for a flight, select their seat, add luggage, and it sends the boarding pass to their mobile phone. Atlético de Madrid: Aura will provide club members, who are Movistar customers also, with the option to transfer their season tickets so that there are no empty seats in the stadium. El Corte Inglés: Aura will offer products related to Movistar+ content. It will also offer customers the option of completing their purchase through their mobile phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laTjB8Rtp1w In addition to these experiences, internal functionalities have also been developed such as Smart Wi-Fi, which lets you see which devices are connected at home or the list of devices on the Wi-Fi network, Movistar Cloud, where all the videos and photos stored in the cloud can be viewed on the television, and Movistar Car which shows the route a car is taking in real time, as well as sending periodic notifications to the customer about the condition of their vehicle. This is just one example of how Telefónica is becoming increasingly significant to its customers and how it fulfils its responsibility to bring the best of technology and new cognitive skills to their lives, proving to be a telco which knows how to best anticipate the future.

Telefónica is the pioneer telco in introducing Artificial Intelligence (AI), through Aura, to facilitate communication with its customers. Behind this initiative, one of the Company's most ambitious, the profiles of Irene Gómez, Ana Molina, Marta Pérez and Sarita Saffon stand out, as some of the hackers who gave the project a feminine voice and face. All of them participate regularly in technology-related events where they highlight Telefónica's advances in AI. Designing a personality for Artificial Intelligence When designing Aura, one of the points that has been studied most carefully has been the type of relationship humans have with AI, taking into account the design challenges posed by new patterns of interaction such as the use of voice. Ana Molina, Service and Experience Designer at Telefónica Aura, during her speech at the sixth edition of Experience Fighters, summed up these challenges with the sentence: "Designing an intelligent interface requires mastering conversational design, exploiting context and data to the fullest, but above all, you have to be prepared for the unexpected." Ana Molina Ana Molina during her lecture at Experience Fighters Always considering the user experience In terms of the overall user experience with Aura, Marta Pérez and Sarita Saffon, UX Researchers at Telefónica Aura, focus their work on user research and idea management, and their experience is based on the design of new processes and tools to help identify user behaviours and needs. That's how they explained it at Redbility Damn! I´m researcher "The importance of research with users in innovation projects, especially in challenging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, is essential in bringing the user experience to the entire design process and decision making within the company” Sarita Saffon Marta Pérez and Sarita Saffon in Redbility Damn! I´m researcher Betting on multidisciplinary teams The best way to develop an AI is to have multidisciplinary teams, so within the Aura project -with Irene Gómez as director- they try to break down barriers and eliminate biases, "with a team that develops in different ways and taking into account that AI training data is representative of a society in a balanced way", as stated by the director at Telefonica Aura in the cycle of Tecnobienestar conferences.Another key point to highlight regarding the use of AI at Telefónica is the implementationof a series of ethical principles to regulate customer’s data usage through Artificial Intelligence. Irene Gómez speaking about Aura in one of her public appearances Telefónica has understood the importance of parity for development in the technological world, with women hackers as Aura standard-bearers who, thanks to their work, have managed to position the company at the forefront as regards the use of AI within telco. If you want to know more about Aura, visit volumes 1 and 2, which tell you its history from birth to the present day.