Utilities Call on Oracle AI to Transform Customer Service

Rhea-AI Summary

Oracle announced new AI-powered capabilities for its Utilities Customer Platform, designed to transform utility call centers. The update includes call summarization and tagging features that will be available at no additional cost to Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service users. Gas South, serving nearly 500,000 customers across 14 states, is leading the implementation. The AI features include industry jargon recognition, PII protection, and noise filtering. Oracle estimates these innovations could help save 20-30% of customer operations spending, potentially resulting in up to $37 billion in savings across the industry from the current $124 billion annual spending. The platform will soon include AI-generated customer snapshots and full call transcripts to improve efficiency and service quality.

Positive

• New AI capabilities offered at no additional cost to existing customers
• Potential for 20-30% reduction in customer operations spending ($37B industry-wide savings)
• Partnership with Gas South demonstrates real-world implementation
• Expansion of features planned including AI-generated customer snapshots and call transcripts

Negative

• None.

Insights

Technology Analyst

Oracle enhances utilities platform with AI features for call centers, potentially improving operational efficiency without increasing customer costs.

Oracle's announcement introduces AI-powered call summarization and tagging capabilities for utility call centers, addressing specific operational pain points rather than deploying generic AI solutions. These features target documented inefficiencies in utility customer service workflows - particularly manual data entry, inconsistent documentation, and poor call categorization.

The new capabilities are planned to be available at no additional cost to existing Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service customers, suggesting a focus on platform stickiness and customer retention. This aligns with broader enterprise software trends of embedding AI into existing workflows rather than creating standalone applications that require additional integration.

Notable features include industry jargon recognition, which helps generate more contextually relevant call summaries specific to utility terminology; PII protection to automatically remove sensitive customer information; and background noise filtering for cleaner call documentation.

The press release indicates these are planned capabilities rather than immediately available features, with Oracle working alongside Gas South to explore optimal implementation approaches. The mention of API access for on-premises customers demonstrates Oracle's continued commitment to hybrid deployment models rather than forcing cloud migration.

While Oracle projects potential industry-wide savings of up to $37 billion, representing 20-30% of estimated annual customer operations spending, the announcement doesn't specify Oracle's expected revenue impact from these enhancements.

Utilities Industry Expert

Oracle's AI call center tools target utility-specific pain points, potentially reducing operational costs while improving customer experience.

Utility call centers have long struggled with balancing operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Oracle's planned AI capabilities address these challenges by automating tedious documentation tasks, enabling agents to focus on customer interactions rather than data entry. For utilities like Gas South, which serves nearly half a million customers across 14 states, this could significantly improve service delivery.

The automated call tagging functionality solves a persistent industry problem: accurately understanding what drives call volume. Currently, call categorization relies on either customer selections in interactive voice response systems (often inaccurate) or inconsistent agent tagging. Better categorization leads to improved workforce planning and issue identification.

The press release claims potential industry-wide operational savings of up to $37 billion (20-30% of estimated $124 billion annual customer operations spending), which while ambitious, acknowledges the significant inefficiencies in current utility customer operations.

For regulated utilities, the PII protection feature addresses compliance requirements around customer data privacy. The system's ability to recognize industry-specific terminology is particularly valuable given the specialized vocabulary of utility operations and billing.

The announcement indicates these features will target key performance metrics utilities monitor, including average handle time and average speed of answer (ASA). By reducing time spent on documentation, agents can process more calls and provide faster service, addressing both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction measures that regulators increasingly monitor.

New AI capabilities in the Oracle Utilities Customer Platform help call centers better manage volume and quickly deliver smart, personalized assistance

PHOENIX, May 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovate UtilityCX -- Today, Oracle announced new AI-powered call summarization and tagging capabilities in the Oracle Utilities Customer Platform, bringing intelligent automation to utility call centers. By helping reduce manual work, these innovations are expected to empower agents to focus on delivering fast issue resolution, personalized service, and real human connection at scale. Oracle is working to help utilities streamline call center operations, lower operating costs, and elevate the customer experience for millions of people around the world. The new AI capabilities are planned to be available at no additional cost to utilities using Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service.

Gas South is leading the way in exploring with Oracle how to deploy AI capabilities best. "At Gas South, we are always looking for new ways to leverage data and automation to deliver better service, improve efficiency, and support our employees," said Greg Dunavant, vice president of customer operations at Gas South. "We are excited to integrate new AI capabilities, with a focus on enhancing the customer experience, empowering our agents, and driving continuous improvement across our organization." Gas South serves nearly half a million customers across 14 states.

Modernizing customer-agent experiences
The AI capabilities in Oracle's customer platform help utilities address today's most pressing call center challenges, including long wait times, inconsistent customer experiences, and tedious, inaccurate data capture. Soon, utilities will be empowered to benefit from built-in listening tools that aid in customer interactions to allow agents to focus on the conversation versus worrying about documentation. This will enable agents to provide faster, more proactive service by better anticipating customer needs before they arise and foreseeing potential issues or opportunities. By lowering total average handle time, the new features also are expected to help support utilities' average speed of answer (ASA) to help meet address requirements.

Many utilities struggle with data limitations that make it hard to understand what is driving call volume and inquiry types. Typically, this is determined by the customers' selections made in the interactive voice response (IVR) or based on the agents' post-call categorization. The new AI capabilities are being developed to add call tags for each call to note billing issues, service interruptions, and other inquiries unique to each call. Utilities will have the ability to choose their own set of categories, make changes any time, and track data such as seasonal or temporary changes in call volume to understand the impact and underlying cause.

The new AI capabilities in the Oracle Customer Platform are also planned to support:

• Industry jargon recognition: The AI recognizes commonly used industry and corporate jargon, as well as utility-specific business language, to help generate more accurate, contextually relevant call summaries.
  
  
• Personally Identifiable Information (PII) protection: The AI assists in automatically removing PII from call summaries to help protect customer privacy and address compliance with utility policies. Agents can still modify summaries as appropriate.
  
  
• Obscenity and noise filtering: The AI automatically filters out background noise and irrelevant language so that call summaries reflect clear, professional conversations between agents and customers.

"Utility call centers are under constant pressure to handle heavy call volume and provide the fast, accurate service and experiences customers expect, but they have lacked the real-time tools required to be successful," said James Steadman, global head of customer product strategy, Oracle Utilities. "These new AI features are planned to empower agents with essential capabilities and deep insights to understand and proactively address customer issues faster than ever. AI can be a game changer for customer operations. If we can help save 20-30% of spending on customer operations annually (estimated at $124 billion per year industry-wide), that could result in up to $37 billion in savings across the industry." 

In addition to natively embedding AI in SaaS offerings, on-premises customers can also benefit by accessing these innovations via a rich set of APIs. Next, Oracle plans to equip agents with AI-generated customer snapshots before calls start, helping speed resolution and improve the customer connection. In addition, Oracle plans to add full call transcripts to automatically generate comprehensive summaries for agents, to reduce manual processes and help improve call note accuracy. This can enable call center leaders to analyze trends and review call information for agent training and quality assurance. Oracle is building on these new AI capabilities with even more Customer Platform innovations designed to help streamline utility work, reduce utility operating costs, and elevate utility customer service. 

To see these AI capabilities in action, visit Oracle at Innovate UtilityCX at Booth #1205 or learn more by visiting Oracle.com/utilities or LinkedIn.

About Oracle
Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.

Future Product Disclaimer
The preceding is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, timing, and pricing of any features or functionality described for Oracle's products may change and remains at the sole discretion of Oracle Corporation.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer
Statements in this article relating to Oracle's future plans, expectations, beliefs, and intentions are "forward-looking statements" and are subject to material risks and uncertainties. Many factors could affect Oracle's current expectations and actual results and could cause actual results to differ materially. A discussion of such factors and other risks that affect Oracle's business is contained in Oracle's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, including Oracle's most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q under the heading "Risk Factors." These filings are available on the SEC's website or on Oracle's website at http://www.oracle.com/investor. All information in this article is current as of May 6, 2025 and Oracle undertakes no duty to update any statement in light of new information or future events.

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SOURCE Oracle

FAQ

What new AI features did Oracle (ORCL) announce for utility companies?

Oracle announced AI-powered call summarization and tagging capabilities for its Utilities Customer Platform, including industry jargon recognition, PII protection, and noise filtering, available at no additional cost to existing customers.

How much cost savings could Oracle's (ORCL) new AI utility platform generate?

Oracle estimates the AI features could save utilities 20-30% on customer operations spending, potentially resulting in up to $37 billion in savings across the industry from the current $124 billion annual spending.

Which utility company is partnering with Oracle (ORCL) to implement the new AI capabilities?

Gas South, which serves nearly half a million customers across 14 states, is leading the implementation of Oracle's new AI capabilities.

What future AI features is Oracle (ORCL) planning for its Utilities Customer Platform?

Oracle plans to add AI-generated customer snapshots before calls start and full call transcripts with automatic comprehensive summaries for agents.