NICE, France – Telefónica said it will launch its artificial intelligence (AI)-based AURA “cognitive intelligence” program in Ecuador this week, with launches in Colombia and Uruguay to follow.

AURA was first announced by Telefónica at the Mobile World Congress event in 2017. It was developed with Microsoft and positioned as a way to use AI to help customers manage their own accounts with the service provider. It was also initially launched as a key element of Telefónica’s strategy to become a platform company.

Positioned as the telco’s fourth platform, AURA brings what platform Senior Product Manager José Ramón Gómez Utrilla describes as “cognitive power” to the first three platforms, which are defined as the network, IT, and services and products. Initially launched as an AI-powered digital assistant, AURA’s role will be expanded over time as it is incorporated into different applications and services.

Speaking at this week’s Digital Transformation World 2019 event in Nice, France, Gómez Utrilla said the primary aim of AURA is to improve the customer experience by using insights gained from data. The biggest challenges are to meet the different requirements of the local markets while creating a global product with a similar user experience and interface to ensure services can be launched quickly and effectively.

The platform was initially launched in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Gómez Utrilla said Telefónica solved the problem of supporting different markets and languages by adopting a platform approach, which enables the local operators to build locally relevant use cases.

For example, Argentina’s first AURA-based service is “pay the bill,” which allows customers to settle their mobile bills; in Spain, AURA has been incorporated into the Movistar+ TV platform and Movistar Home hub; in the U.K. it is being integrated with the My O2 app to allow subscribers to check their bills; in Brazil, AURA is integrated with Google Assistant and WhatsApp; and in Germany it provides online customer support.

According to Gómez Utrilla, the service currently has two million monthly active users, generates six million conversations per month, 30 million conversations in total to date, supports 1,000 use cases, and is available via 20 customer channels.

The next phase for the platform is to incorporate more intelligent with the addition of privacy tools that will allow subscribers to control their data, and to link with more third-party companies to create new services.

Rick Lievano, worldwide director of technology strategy for the Microsoft Telecommunications industry, hailed AURA as the “highest profile AI project in the telco sector.”

“It is truly exceptional what they have done,” said Lievano, who joined Gómez Utrilla during the AURA presentation at this week’s event. Lievano explained that while it is a “never-ending journey” to become an AI-enabled digital business, there are important aspects that should always be considered. For instance, AI should be inclusive and applied everywhere and to everyone within the business. AI’s guiding principles of fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics should also always be applied. As an example, customers should always be aware that they are talking to a chat bot and not a real person.

Lievano also said that Telefónica and Microsoft’s strategic agreement is now extending beyond AURA. While the focus will remain on bringing AURA to more areas of the business, they will also make use of AI to transform the network and move toward full network automation.