The new BSI Companion is AI at its finest

To introduce the BSI Companion, the new AI companion in the BSI Customer Suite, we talk with Tido about Artificial Intelligence, open source and BSI AI. It's morning, and Tido is connected to us via Teams from Berlin and is in a great mood for conversation.

10 questions for Tido Meyer-Völcker, Community Manager AI

"Hi Tido, How has your morning been so far – has Artificial Intelligence already helped you today?"

Tido: "It definitely has. It starts early when I look at the weather app, continues with the news and the stock market reports, and does not stop with the navigation in the car: Artificial Intelligence is used for so many services today, and the trend is rising sharply."

"Yet, one cannot discuss AI without speaking of terms such as data protection and responsibility. How do you assess the legal elements of using AI?"

Tido: "Indeed, legal aspects play an essential role in almost all areas of AI technology: Data protection is a good example. With data protection, we typically want to protect sensitive information, mostly personal data, against unauthorized access from the external environment.

At BSI, we have a very simple solution for this: All customer data remains in the data protection zone of the BSI Customer Suite at all times, because our AI applications are fully integrated into the Suite. This gives us complete independence from external AI service providers – and our customers’ data is secure."

"And what about responsibility?"

Tido: "The survey results from large market research firms like Gartner speak for themselves: Responsible AI, which is the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence, will undoubtedly be one of the core topics in the AI world in the next few years.

And in this regard, too, we at BSI can say: That’s perfect. We've already done our homework. And I don't just mean our AI Code of Conduct, the comprehensive and practical set of rules for our AI projects; or the fact that we are committed to digital ethics and compliance with regulations such as the EU AI Act or the GDPR by having the Data Fairness Label from SWISS INSIGHTS.

At BSI, we have taken several additional critical steps beyond that in terms of responsibility. And our decision in favor of open source has a lot to do with it."

"Open source supports Responsible AI? How can we visualize that?"

Tido: "For us, the responsible use of AI – and thus of our customers’ data – means that we do not become dependent on commercial AI service providers, but instead work with open-source models. By the way, and this is an important thing to know, these days, open-source models are just as powerful as commercial systems or can even outperform them. And, of course, they have other advantages as well:

In the Customer Suite, our customers have full control over their data at all times. And we can always decide on the latest and best technology on the market for the benefit of our customers and are independent of licenses. We also know the data that is used to train our AI systems.

This allows us, for example, to rule out the "hate speech" phenomenon in the BSI Companion, our new AI companion in the Customer Suite."

"So, the BSI Companion cannot curse?"

Tido: "It's almost impossible. Just like AI hallucination, which is the invention and expression of false facts. Or bias, which stands for distortion effects as a result of erroneous assumptions. We ensure the absence of all that by using, among other things, "clean" training data as the "vocabulary" for our open-source language models. In addition, we are fully transparent about the language models and training data we use.

One thing the BSI Companion can already do very well is to recognize the tonality in communication, for example, in e-mail inquiries and requests from customers. This means the Companion detects whether cursing is done there – but it cannot and will not respond with a curse."

"And what else can the BSI Companion do?"

Tido: "One of the most important things is that the BSI Companion is exactly where I, the user, need it to be to help me with the workflow. This is a huge advantage of the full AI system integration: We can truly let the BSI Companion serve as a helpful AI companion anywhere in the Customer Suite. The Companion is the reliable assistant who almost always sits right next to me, the user – and who I don't have to look for in the office building across the street. This makes the use of AI in our Suite extraordinarily user-friendly.

In addition, our BSI Companion is already incredibly proficient in the communication area: It can summarize messages from customers quickly and clearly and, as I already mentioned, it can discern the tonality of a message. It can also translate. Plus, it makes suggestions for responses and helps optimize texts. This alone already saves countless hours of work in the contact centers of BSI customers."

"Critics claim that AI is threatening jobs. Does the BSI Companion threaten jobs, too?"

Tido: "No, not at all. It only changes work situations. Let's briefly look at a contact center where the BSI Companion has already taken on tasks from the employees.

What exactly does it do there? It is very simple: It performs frequently occurring standard tasks reliably and efficiently. For example, it responds to inquiries about delivery dates, contract terms, or insurance benefits. By doing this, the BSI Companion provides an important service in day-to-day business. Employees can use the time saved and spend it with consulting-intensive customers or process individual tasks, something which, by the way, noticeably increases the overall quality of customer service.

When they use the BSI Companion, contact center employees therefore become consulting specialists who can use their professional, individual, and human skills in a targeted manner exactly where they are needed. So, the work is not getting any less. It just becomes more specialized. And I think it's also more pleasant."

"And how can we ensure the quality of cooperation between humans and AI?"

Tido: "It is very simple: For example, we use partially instead of fully automated processes in our direct customer communication and install breakpoints where employees can efficiently manage the work of the BSI Companion “as gatekeepers” and release it for the subsequent steps.

This means that we are not arbitrarily at the mercy of AI’s creative drive but can individually define boundaries and design work processes meaningfully and safely. BSI customers appreciate this flexibility very much. Because with the BSI Customer Suite and the BSI Companion, they can adjust the degree of automation and AI support precisely to their company’s needs and modify them with flexibility."

"How long has the BSI Companion been around?"

Tido: "At first glance, the AI concept of our BSI Companion seems to be quite new. Yet it comes from the same AI family we have already used to develop milestones in the BSI Customer Suite:

Our generative 360° view of customers is an excellent example, where a customer’s current situation is automatically summarized and even graphically visualized in an overview. A lot of AI is used to make this possible. It virtually makes the 360° view the BSI Companion’s twin sister.

Or the next best actions, which are recommendations the BSI Customer Suite makes that are determined by AI. An example is the best time to send an offer to a certain customer group by e-mail. It is Artificial Intelligence at its finest. The next best actions are the trend tips our BSI Companion provides.

I like it when Artificial Intelligence is assigned human attributes. This significantly simplifies the understanding and is also a good tool for integrating AI to structure workflows that are suitable for everyday use."

"My last question: What does the future look like for the BSI Companion?"

Tido: "Here is our vision: In the foreseeable future, we want to develop the BSI Customer Suite into a platform that one can engage with in natural language at all levels – from company employees directly in CRM, to external systems, or as part of CX stories. Then, we will be able to have a conversation with the BSI Companion almost as you and I are doing it now – while the BSI Customer Suite works for us in the background."

"These are exciting perspectives. Thank you for your time and the great conversation, Tido!"