Telstra Generative AI Case Study: 20% Fewer Follow-Ups

Telstra is one of Australia’s largest telecommunications and technology companies. Telstra developed two generative AI tools, Ask Telstra and One Sentence Summary, to help frontline employees find internal information faster and understand customer histories more quickly. 

During the 2023 trials, 90% of employees using One Sentence Summary reported saving time and becoming more effective. Calls supported by the tool required 20% less follow-up contact than calls handled without it.

Source: Telstra Annual Report 2024

The Challenge Telstra Faced

• Telstra’s customer-service employees needed to navigate an extensive knowledge base covering products, plans, technical issues and customer policies.

• Agents also had to review detailed customer histories before responding. This increased the time needed to understand each case and sometimes required customers to repeat information when interacting with different employees. 

Telstra needed an AI solution that could retrieve reliable internal information and summarise customer histories within its existing CRM and service workflows.

The AI Solution Telstra Implemented

• Ask Telstra was initially trialled with approximately 200 customer-service agents. One Sentence Summary was tested with 100 agents before the company began expanding the application across its contact centres and retail teams. 

• One Sentence Summary consolidated recent customer notes, transactions and previous interactions into a short summary within Telstra’s CRM system.

This gave agents immediate context before speaking with a customer. They could understand previous enquiries, identify unresolved issues and respond without requiring customers to repeat information.

According to Telstra, calls supported by One Sentence Summary required 20% less follow-up contact compared with calls handled without the tool. The result suggests that providing agents with clearer customer context helped them address more of the customer’s needs during the initial interaction.

Source: Microsoft’s official Telstra customer story

Telstra also used employee feedback from the pilots to refine the tools before wider deployment.

Results Telstra Reported

Telstra reported that:

• 20% less follow-up contact for calls using One Sentence Summary.

• 90% of employees using the tool reported saving time and becoming more effective.

• 84% of Ask Telstra users said it positively affected customer interactions.

• Agents retrieved internal information faster.

• New employees relied less on managers when searching for answers.

Source: Telstra’s official AI rollout announcement

One-sentence summaries also helped employees understand sensitive customer circumstances, including cases involving financial hardship, before beginning the conversation.

What This Means for Enterprises

One takeaway from Telstra's rollout is the value of starting with specific frontline use cases rather than attempting a company-wide deployment immediately. Telstra tested Ask Telstra and One Sentence Summary with smaller employee groups, gathered feedback and then expanded the tools. 

The implementation also demonstrates why enterprise AI requires governance alongside technical development. Telstra says its AI systems are assigned responsible owners and evaluated for safety, privacy, monitoring and the need for human oversight. 

Telstra’s Responsible AI governance framework

Enterprises should therefore treat AI implementation as a combination of:

• Use-case selection.

• Data and knowledge preparation.

• System integration.

• Employee adoption.

• AI governance.

• Continuous monitoring.

Find the Right AI Use Case for Your Business Transformation 

Rubixe helps enterprises assess their data, infrastructure, workflows, security and governance before implementing AI. Our AI Readiness Audit provides a prioritised roadmap covering suitable use cases, technical gaps, risks and implementation requirements.

Rubixe can also design custom copilots, internal knowledge assistants and AI-powered workflow applications through its AI consulting services.

What to Do Next 

Book a free AI consultation with our industry-first AI experts to identify which business workflows are suitable for a structured AI pilot.

Note: Rubixe was not involved in Telstra’s implementation. This is Rubixe’s independent analysis of a publicly documented deployment.