AI customer service technology 'still learning' following launch, Renfrewshire council says

Renfrewshire Council has admitted its 24/7 digital advisor, a service called Millie, is still “learning” after its launch at the end of last year.

The local authority became the first in Scotland to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) powered technology to its customer contact centre in November.

Previously, the council’s phone system used a recorded message with a list of numbered options and callers selected the option for the team they thought could help.

However, Millie asks questions to understand what they are looking for and tries to find the most appropriate answer, before offering to text that answer and any relevant information from the website.

If it can’t answer or thinks someone needs immediate support, it will transfer to the specific service and an advisor will speak with them.

An update was provided on the initiative at a meeting of the finance, resources and customer services policy board on Thursday.

It said Millie received 18,791 calls in December – of which 64% were transferred to advisors and 36% were provided the answer they were looking for at the first hurdle.

Councillor Graeme Clark, a Labour representative for Paisley Northeast and Ralston, said: “I struggle with AI, whether it be Copilot or Apple Intelligence, it’s quite a difficult thing to work with and to get right.

“Millie is there but the figures seem to indicate a perfect service which is clearly not the case. What are the figures where Millie has defaulted?

“I know that a number of councillors have expressed concern about this, as have many of the members of the public.”

Gary Innes, senior service delivery manager for customer and digital operations, said he was aware a “small number of customers” have encountered “difficulty” with the technology.

He added: “Within experiencing that difficulty with Millie, AI does continue to learn but even if the customer does experience difficulty, they always receive an outcome of either being transferred or being provided an answer.

“They may say at the end of it that the answer wasn’t helpful but the answer may still be provided and then they’re subsequently transferred, so I would always expect that every call entering Millie will exit Millie.

“We don’t have any high volumes of customers who are talking about being kept on a continual loop and even if there are five or six customers it’s not going to reflect in terms of the percentage, so overall you’ll get a successful outcome, either being transferred or being provided the answer.

“We do reference in the report this is brand new and we are learning, Millie is learning, and we’re working closely with our partner to ensure that she continues to provide a better service every single time a customer is answered.

“Just in the last week, there’s been over 150 changes that have now been processed through Millie to make her more effective going forward.”