The agreement between the two companies, which began in 2019, is based on the combination of AI services available on IBM Cloud^® and automation systems.

WINDTRE relied on the technology and domain experts at IBM Consulting^® to design, develop and manage the solution, which is powered by technologies such as IBM^® watsonx^™ Assistant, IBM Watson^® Knowledge Studio and IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding. The watsonx Assistant platform classifies reports, Watson Knowledge Studio creates machine-learning and rules-based annotators to “train” IBM Watson on WINDTRE’s domain-specific topics, and Watson Natural Language Understanding extracts relevant information from the text. These solutions apply machine learning capabilities to understand human language, reason, extract information, suggest hypotheses for interpretation, learn, streamline and simplify ticket management.

After the analysis phase, tickets are enriched with information gathered from WINDTRE’s information systems and sent to automation systems for resolution. The ticket processing phase is now handled by robotic process automation (RPA) to optimize the process. This solution consists of two main components: the “dispatcher,” which takes tickets to be processed and places them in a queue within the solution, and the “performer,” which performs the resolution actions. At the architecture level, the robotics component is released on virtual machines in the cloud, making the IBM solution security-rich and scalable.

The integration was carried out using the Agile working method, followed by moments of sharing and communication between WINDTRE and IBM management to review objectives, results and priorities. A dedicated dashboard and reporting systems continuously monitor performance, volume and expected benefits.

Today, thanks to the solution, over 10,000 reports per month, 60% of which are non-service desk related, are handled in three ways:

• Ticket “automatically resolved”: The alert is resolved completely by AI without intervention of an operator.
• Ticket “partially resolved”: The alert is analyzed, classified and enriched with information obtained from WINDTRE’s systems, in order to assist both first and second-level operators.
• Ticket “routed”: The alert is analyzed and automatically assigned to the most appropriate team of operators.

The benefits of integrating IBM Watson have been countless, starting with the service desk and back office staff’s appreciation for the solution. Now, the most repetitive tasks are being managed through the “Intelligent Automation” system, allowing the company to save time and re-focus people to more value-added tasks.

The response time is 10 times faster than before, human errors are reduced due to the timely definition of procedures, and the ability to activate multiple robots in parallel to handle alerts simultaneously provides unprecedented scalability.

“We are excited about the collaboration with WINDTRE,” says Tiziana Tornaghi, IBM Consulting Managing Partner for Italy. “In recent years we have faced the challenges related to digital transformation with a great spirit of unity, achieving very important results. The future is even more promising thanks to the flexibility offered by cloud environments and the enormous potential of frontier technologies such as generative AI and intelligent automation.”

WINDTRE and IBM have decided to further raise the levels of expected automation and, at the same time, broaden the scope of intervention through the processing of infrastructure incidents. Using AI and advanced analytics algorithms, the goal is to identify the main causes of recurring problems to anticipate their resolution.

The next goal is to create a multi-disciplinary team to work jointly on AI and automation.

WINDTRE (link resides outside of ibm.com) is the multi-service operator that offers connections, energy and insurance products*. A point of reference for families who ask for reliability, convenience and transparency in offers. WINDTRE is positioned as the number one mobile telco operator in Italy thanks to a cutting-edge infrastructure, called Top Quality Network. 

*Energy and insurance services offered by third-party partners. Wind Tre S.p.A. insurance intermediary registered in section A-Agents of the RUI, subject to supervision by IVASS.