Amdocs launches a generative AI framework for telcos

Telco software firm Amdocs has launched amAIz, which aims to bring much of the latest AI cleverness to much of the rest of its portfolio.

There’s lots of fairly abstract marketing-speak and long sentences in the press release, but this framework essentially aims to integrate the kind of AI cleverness and natural language processing we associate with ChatGPT to both the operator-side and customer-side of a bunch of Amdocs’ offerings.

“Amdocs amAIz delivers both templated use cases based on deep industry expertise and perspective, as well as tooling and infrastructure that can be quickly adopted to accelerate time to market, improve operational efficiencies, and increase quality of service through generative AI-powered experiences,” explains the press release.

So what does all that mean in practice? And what does the ‘z’ in the name stand for? Amdocs says it ‘will empower CSPs to deploy generative AI use cases across the telecom ecosystem, from customer experience to network provisioning.’ The Customer side presumably involves AI infused chatbots employed as far as possible into the customer service cascade. On the network side, we would assume it seeks to augment areas in which AI already plays a significant part, perhaps with a pinch of ‘no-code’ goodness.

“Generative AI technology presents a tremendous opportunity for service providers to re-invent both the way they engage with customers, as well as driving efficiencies,” said Anthony Goonetilleke, Group President of Technology and Head of Strategy at Amdocs. “Our investment in the amAIz framework reflects our belief in generative AI’s promise and the need for enterprise-grade security, reliability and performance.”

Here are the named parts of the Amdocs portfolio that will initially benefit from this framework: Customer Engagement Platform, Catalog, Intelligent Networking Suite, Smart Operations, and Cloud Services. Amdocs is conflating this launch with the announcement of a strategic partnership with Microsoft earlier this year. Microsoft is a major investor in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

UPDATE – 12:40, 6/6/23: The ‘z’ doesn’t stand for anything by itself, rather it exists to complete the acronym, which is intended to be pronounced “amaze”.

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