TLDR: Optus has launched “Expert AI,” a generative AI solution developed in partnership with Google Cloud, aimed at enhancing the performance of its customer service staff. This tool provides real-time conversation analysis, suggested responses, and intelligent task execution to streamline customer interactions, without replacing human agents. The rollout will progressively occur throughout 2025, starting with staff supporting small business customers.
Optus, a leading telecommunications company, has introduced “Expert AI,” a groundbreaking generative artificial intelligence solution designed to significantly boost the capabilities of its frontline customer service teams. Launched on July 30, 2025, this innovative tool is not intended to replace human agents but rather to empower them with advanced real-time support, as confirmed by Jesse Arundell, Head of AI at Optus.
Developed in a strategic partnership with Google Cloud and built using Agent Assist, Expert AI integrates advanced natural language understanding with real-time orchestration. The system actively listens to customer conversations, interprets their needs, and offers contextual guidance and suggested responses directly to the human agent. “This is really all about empowering our people to better serve our customers,” stated Jesse Arundell during the Google Cloud Summit in Sydney. He further emphasized, “They play a hyper-critical role, and often have a lot of interactions to manage alongside complicated product and process information.”
The Expert AI solution provides suggestions in Optus’ established tone of voice, allowing staff to either adopt or edit them as needed. Arundell noted, “It’s right there with them all the time, helping them, giving them signals, guidance and then also suggested responses.” This approach aims to instill confidence and clarity in every customer interaction.
The development of Expert AI spanned nine months and involved a close collaboration with Google Cloud, making Optus one of the first enterprise customers to co-develop and test this solution ahead of Google Cloud’s planned white-label release later this year. Arundell described this collaboration as “quite profound,” highlighting that Optus directly influenced the design, architecture, and engineering of the solution.
Expert AI represents a significant milestone in Optus’ broader AI roadmap, which is structured around four key pillars: improving customer experience, empowering staff, modernizing technology, and updating the network. “Expert AI has been a big pillar in the empowering our people component of our strategy,” Arundell explained, expressing optimism that this initiative will lead to a “real leap forward in how we serve customers.”
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While Optus’ public-facing virtual agents have already successfully resolved 2.2 million queries in the past year, Expert AI operates as a behind-the-scenes tool, focusing on enabling better service from human agents rather than automation. Initial feedback from trial users has been overwhelmingly positive. The rollout of Expert AI will commence across Optus’ expert community, with an initial focus on staff supporting small business customers, and potential expansion into other channels based on performance metrics such as net provider score, issue resolution, and average handling time. The tool will continue to evolve based on ongoing feedback from frontline staff, collected through an internal network of champions and advocates.
