“We saw Google Cloud as a trusted partner to make MyTelkomsel smarter,” adds Roland. “This was achieved by building an AI-powered search feature that delivered more relevant results faster and tailored to our customer needs. With Gemini and Vertex AI, we can recommend products and services that match our customer preferences.

“Google Cloud and Gemini provided an integrated environment to manage customized models, allowing us to continuously innovate and enhance the customer experience,” he adds. “With their support, we have integrated AI into the MyTelkomsel app, greatly enhancing the personalized experience and user engagement.”

Working with Devoteam, Telkomsel fully integrated Vertex AI Search and Gemini into the MyTelkomsel app in June 2024. This process entailed migrating data from the organization’s BigQuery and Datastore environments into Vertex AI Search to realize the project’s objectives. The mobile operator is working with Google Cloud on a roadmap to introduce more personalized features, including recommendations, and integrate additional data categories, including those covering Indihome fixed-line products, into AI-powered search for MyTelkomsel.

Vertex AI Search and Gemini now support accurate, personalized search across multimodal data, including text, audio, video, images, and more. Navigation is simplified and streamlined, greatly improving user satisfaction. The business also leveraged the tools to launch a virtual assistant that provided instant, relevant answers to customer queries through auto-completion, natural language understanding, and search results tailored to individual usage patterns. This reduced wait times and freed up MyTelkomsel’s human agents to solve more complex problems. Engineers also no longer have to do manual updates to the keyword search database.

Within three months, Telkmosel had recorded an 88% rise in clicks and a 20% increase in purchases across MyTelkomsel. “Users are now relying heavily on search features to find telecommunications products,” says Roland. “When we look at customer segments by length of stay with us, we see these features being particularly useful for customers that have been with us for one year, which enables us to fight churn. We also see that newer customers who have stayed with us for one to three months or three to six months to date are increasingly using search.

“This indicates that AI-powered search effectively improves the experience for long-term and new users.”

Considerable improvements in search engagement and revenue from search interaction within MyTelkomsel further bear out this outcome. “Our partnership with Google Cloud using Gemini has enhanced our customer experience through AI and machine learning,” says Roland. “The result is very very impressive. It has led to a 355% increase in search engagement and a more than three times revenue boost from search interaction in the MyTelkomsel platform itself.”

Telkomsel views Google Cloud AI tools as critical to its plans to further enhance search within the MyTelkomsel apps. “Later, we will integrate Gemini and Vertex AI Search to deliver faster and more relevant search to customers, based on their preferences and behaviors,” says Roland. 

“For example, future versions will not only provide relevant search, but personalized recommendations, whether that be a telecommunications package or channel service such as a channel subscription,” he added. “This is the key to solving current challenges, such as search relevance and lack of structured recommendations. This AI-driven enhancement will ensure MyTelkomsel evolves into a platform that anticipates customer needs, boosting user satisfaction and engagement. 

“At the same time, it will strengthen Telkomsel’s leadership in digital transformation across Asia-Pacific, helping us drive growth and innovation in the region.”