TLDR: CelcomDigi is undergoing a significant internal AI evolution, integrating AI across various departments including legal, HR, finance, and customer service. A key highlight is ‘Sophia,’ a digital employee that automates 300 processes, performing the equivalent work of 50 individuals. The company is also developing AI solutions for network maintenance, customer service optimization, and even advanced healthcare applications, with plans to offer these as AI-as-a-Service to SMEs.
CelcomDigi is spearheading a comprehensive internal AI transformation, showcasing a robust ecosystem of homegrown AI solutions at the recent ASEAN AI Summit. These innovations are designed to automate hundreds of business processes, drastically reduce multi-day tasks to mere minutes, and enhance overall business efficiency.
At the forefront of this transformation is ‘Sophia,’ a sophisticated digital employee developed over four years, starting in 2021. Sophia has evolved from basic automation to incorporating generative AI and agentic AI capabilities, now automating 300 processes across the organization. An executive at the summit noted, ‘Roughly we calculated, she does about 50 people’s worth of work.’ Sophia’s responsibilities include handling regulatory compliance, such as automated reporting to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), and processing law enforcement data requests, tasks that previously took five to six days but are now completed within an hour. She also manages onboarding, asset allocation, financial reporting, and daily operational tasks, with employees interacting via Microsoft Teams.
Kugan Thirunavakasaru, CelcomDigi’s Chief Innovation Officer, emphasized that this AI integration is focused on ‘enhancing productivity and upskilling individuals,’ with no retrenchments resulting from the rollout. The company’s ‘fusion’ strategy positions AI and data at the core of all business functions, a critical move following the merger of Celcom and Digi in 2022.
The legal department has emerged as an unexpected pioneer, developing the SAGE (Scope Assembly Generation Engine) project. This tool automates contract scope preparation, reducing a two-to-three-day task to minutes with 70%-90% automation accuracy. It also performs deep legal research, completing comprehensive analyses in two to five minutes, a task that typically required three to four days of human effort. Initial accuracy rates of 40%-50% have improved to 70%-90% through continuous refinement.
CelcomDigi’s internal AI development primarily leverages open-source platforms and cloud services, allowing for rapid development cycles. Kugan highlighted the cost-effectiveness and scalability of this approach, stating, ‘The internal AI development mostly is done through open source and does not cost much.’ This contrasts with the US$59.16 million (RM250 million) committed to its external-facing AI Experience Centre (AIX), which focuses on co-creation with approximately 50 partners across eight verticals.
Beyond administrative functions, CelcomDigi also showcased advanced healthcare AI applications. These convert 2D MRI and CT scans into 3D visualizations for surgical planning, actively used by 65 surgeons in multiple Malaysian hospitals. The company also completed Southeast Asia’s first surgery using this technology in collaboration with Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).
Also Read:
- Indian Telecom Sector Embraces AI for Intelligent Networks, Enhanced Connectivity, and Social Impact
- Telecommunications Sector Drives Innovation: Majority of GenAI Projects Focused on New Customer Solutions
Looking ahead, CelcomDigi plans to launch AIX 2.0, a refreshed version of its external innovation hub, and aims to offer its internally developed AI applications as AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS) to Malaysia’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which constitute 96.1% of the country’s business ecosystem. This dual-track approach positions CelcomDigi as both a significant AI user and a future AI services provider.
