Advania's Successful Implementation of Conversational AI in Iceland

Advania is a leading Nordic IT services firm with roots in Reykjavik dating back to 1939. The company operates throughout the Nordic region, providing a range of IT services, platforms, cloud services, and support to multinational enterprises, governments, and businesses in both the public and private sectors. In Iceland, Advania's software solutions team focuses on everything from processes to artificial intelligence, offering a wide range of solutions including Salesforce CRM, OutSystems, and boost.ai's conversational AI platform. Advania identified the potential of automation in meeting the high customer service expectations in Iceland, where 98% of households are online.

Advania, a leading Nordic IT services firm, identified a unique opportunity in Iceland's high customer service expectations due to the country's high internet usage. With 98% of Icelandic households being online, the demand for efficient online interaction with companies and government institutions was high. However, the high salary costs in Iceland posed a challenge for companies to quickly scale up and down their customer service as needed. Furthermore, despite the country's inclination towards online communication, chatbots and conversational AI were relatively unheard of due to skepticism about AI's ability to handle the complex Icelandic language. This necessitated Advania to partner with a conversational AI vendor whose Natural Language Processing (NLP) took a language-agnostic approach.

Advania partnered with boost.ai to implement their conversational AI platform in Iceland. The boost.ai solution was designed to require minimal work to add a new language model, making it suitable for the complex Icelandic language. The first virtual agent was launched for the Icelandic Student Loan Fund, Menntasjóður námsmanna, within a matter of weeks. The virtual agent allowed the government agency to automate repetitive questions and handle traffic spikes during peak season, freeing up human agents for more complex inquiries. Since then, Advania has developed and launched seven virtual agents across various sectors, with four more scheduled to go live. The virtual agents have been successful in providing scalable customer service without the need for a large staff, particularly for companies like Play, the Icelandic airline, and Islandsbanki, the leading Icelandic bank.

• The implementation of the boost.ai platform has been a resounding success for Advania. The virtual agents have allowed companies to automate repetitive questions and handle traffic spikes, freeing up human agents for more complex inquiries. This has been particularly beneficial for companies like Play, which was able to provide scalable customer service from its inception without needing to staff up an entire contact center. Similarly, Islandsbanki transformed its digital customer service within six months of launching its virtual agent. The flexibility of the boost.ai platform has allowed Advania to confidently enter new markets backed by class-leading technology and a faultless track record. The success of the implementations has garnered attention from other departments within the company, and clients feel empowered by the new technology to reshape customer service for their organizations.

• Implemented the first virtual agent in a matter of weeks

• Developed and launched seven virtual agents across various sectors

• Four more virtual agents scheduled to go live