Optus will begin using a generative AI-powered virtual agent, co-developed with Google Cloud, to interpret and support contact centre staff interactions with customers.

Named Expert AI, the agent was developed using the cloud service’s Customer Engagement Suite, including its large-language model Gemini.

The agent is designed to assist human agents by interpreting customer conversations, retrieving relevant information and suggesting responses during live interactions.

According to Optus head of AI solutions and strategy Jesse Arundell, the telco will progressively roll out the tool to frontline workers over the remainder of 2025.

“[Expert AI] is doing a couple of different things,” he told iTnews. “It’s analysing the actual conversation the customer’s having using AI services.

“It’s going and then analysing different data stores… primarily around our products, our processes and then information about our customers.”

The agent was developed over nine months and connects to internal systems using a custom-built orchestration service, which acts as a middleware layer between Google Cloud services and Optus’ enterprise data stack.

Arundell said Optus is one of the first enterprise customers to co-develop and test the solution ahead of a planned white-label release by Google Cloud later this year.

“It’s quite profound,” Arundell said.

“We’ve worked directly with Google to shape the design, architecture, and engineering of the solution.

“Not only are we among the first to use it, but Google will also roll it out more broadly as part of the Customer Engagement Suite.”

Optus is measuring the virtual agent’s performance using metrics such as net provider score, issue resolution, and average handling time.

A “broad portfolio” of opportunities

Arundell took over leadership of Optus’ AI division in May following the departure of Optus’ first AI vice president Samantha Lawson.

The move coincided with a recent restructure where Optus’ AI delivery was removed from its customer success division and integrated across wider business operations overseen by chief operating officer Kathrine Dyer.

Speaking about current initiatives within the new structure, Arundell said there is a “broad portfolio of opportunities” focused on customer experience improvements, alongside IT and network modernisation.

One recent initiative was the roll out GitHub Copilot to Optus’ 550-person tech workforce, spanning IT, networking and the AI division, to accelerate coding projects.

Specific use cases, according to Arundell, include system design, programming performance and testing automation.

“Across the full systems development life cycle, we’re continuing to find opportunities to use it,” he added.