Kuljesh Puri, Svp & Gm Of Communications, Media & Technology, Persistent Systems – Interview Series

Kuljesh Puri is nan Senior Vice President and General Manager of Communications, Media & Technology astatine Persistent Systems. He brings complete 26 years of acquisition crossed nan software, telecom, and semiconductor industries, on pinch extended world vulnerability and a passion for transformation.

Before joining Persistent, Kuljesh headed nan Telecom Product Engineering portfolio astatine Tech Mahindra. Before that he worked astatine Harman International, a Samsung company, arsenic Vice President and Global General Manager for nan Telecom and Industrial verticals, mandated pinch defining a maturation trajectory for nan business. Earlier, Kuljesh spent 15 years successful elder business and engineering roles astatine Aricent successful some nan B2B and B2C businesses.

Persistent Systems is simply a world integer engineering and endeavor modernization institution that partners pinch businesses to thrust invention and accelerate integer transformation. With heavy expertise successful software, cloud, and data, Persistent delivers end-to-end solutions crossed industries, including healthcare, financial services, communications, and technology.

What are nan astir transformative ways you spot AI impacting telephone halfway operations successful telecom and media today?

Traditionally, interaction centers person been costs centers designed to grip customer queries. Over nan years, from phone-based telephone centers, customer work has evolved into multi-channel work centers done chat, emails, and mobile apps.  Key innovations for illustration seamless omnichannel experiences, AI-driven multilingual self-service, sentiment analysis, and predictive churn guidance are nary longer optional—they are essential. At nan aforesaid time, Agentic AI is transforming interaction centers into customer acquisition centers by afloat handling end-to-end tasks for illustration billing corrections, scheme upgrades, aliases method troubleshooting without quality intervention, going beyond scripted chatbots. Overall, AI is enabling businesses to expect customer needs alternatively than simply reacting to them by switching from reactive support to predictive, personalized and self-improving. The consequence is enhanced operational ratio and nan expertise to thrust deeper customer restitution and loyalty. By reducing costs and improving service, AI is transforming telephone centers from accepted costs centers into high-value, client-centric hubs that straight effect revenue.

How are predictive analytics, automation, and NLP improving real-time customer interactions?

The integration of predictive analytics, automation, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) is revolutionizing really we prosecute pinch clients successful existent time. Predictive analytics allows organizations to expect customer behaviour and connection proactive solutions. Automation speeds up processes, ensuring accelerated responses to customer queries while minimizing quality error. On nan different hand, NLP empowers chatbots and virtual assistants to prosecute successful much natural, human-like conversations, improving some nan value and velocity of service. When combined, these technologies create an situation wherever customer interactions are faster and much personalized—ultimately enhancing nan customer acquisition and fostering loyalty.

How does AI lend to creating a much seamless, omnichannel customer experience?

AI is nan cardinal constituent of a seamless, omnichannel customer experience. It enables companies to merge interactions crossed various channels—whether it’s a chatbot connected a website, a speech connected societal media, aliases a telephone telephone to a interaction center. By consolidating information from these touchpoints, AI ensures nan messaging is accordant and tailored to each client. The existent powerfulness of AI lies successful its expertise to personalize these interactions, ensuring that clients person relevant, context-aware support crossed channels. This creates a frictionless experience, wherever clients tin move from 1 touchpoint to different without losing continuity.

With extended acquisition moving pinch telecom and media companies, we person helped organizations leverage AI to streamline customer journeys, amended workflows, and supply a unified experience. This enables clients to create a much seamless, personalized work that enhances restitution and drives lasting loyalty.

What are nan astir communal symptom points organizations look erstwhile deploying AI into their telephone centers?

One of nan biggest challenges organizations look erstwhile deploying AI successful their telephone centers is integrating it pinch bequest systems. Many accepted interaction centers, peculiarly those relying connected on-premises solutions, deficiency nan infrastructure to support AI’s precocious capabilities. Migrating to nan unreality is basal to unlocking AI’s afloat potential, but this modulation tin beryllium analyzable and costly. Additionally, AI models require high-quality, well-organized data, which bequest systems often struggle to provide. Ensuring a soft modulation without disrupting nan customer acquisition is different important hurdle. Privacy and information concerns regarding information usage besides request to beryllium addressed comprehensively.

Organizations request an knowledgeable partner to navigate these challenges—one pinch a heavy knowing of some AI and industry-specific needs. We’ve helped galore telecom and media companies modernize their interaction centers, overcoming these symptom points and ensuring seamless transitions that amended operational ratio and heighten nan wide customer experience.

For example, Persistent collaborated pinch a starring U.S. telecommunications exertion provider to heighten their interaction halfway operations. The customer wanted to analyse customer interactions done their conversational AI level to summation insights into customer restitution and supplier performance. We developed a GCP-backed information analytics furniture that processed information from complete 30 real-time streaming pipelines, handling complete 1 cardinal messages daily. This solution provided adjacent real-time insights, helping nan customer show cardinal metrics for illustration caller sentiment and work satisfaction, yet improving customer acquisition and operational efficiency.

By partnering pinch experts who understand some AI and nan telecom industry, organizations tin flooded communal deployment challenges, modernize their interaction centers, and unlock valuable data-driven insights to heighten customer interactions and thrust operational improvements.

What are immoderate of nan biggest differences successful really telecom vs. media companies are adopting AI for customer service?

The telecommunications assemblage has agelong been a pioneer successful establishing large-scale interaction centers, driven by nan request to negociate basal services specified arsenic billing inquiries, caller connections, and troubleshooting connectivity issues. These functions stay cardinal to nan industry, and AI is progressively leveraged to optimize operations successful these areas, arsenic they correspond a important information of customer support summons volumes. Given nan competitory landscape, galore telecom operators besides usage predictive analytics to expect customer churn, enabling targeted trading campaigns and retention strategies.

In contrast, media companies attraction connected AI for different purposes, specified arsenic detecting relationship sharing, managing subscriptions, analyzing viewing patterns, curating content, and enhancing customer engagement done automated self-service options.

At Persistent, we person worked pinch some telecom and media companies to tailor AI solutions that meet their chopped challenges. For telecom, we attraction connected improving operational efficiencies and leveraging predictive analytics to thrust proactive customer service. For media companies, we purpose to heighten customer engagement done AI-driven recommendations, contented personalization, and self-service automation.

In your experience, what taste aliases organizational shifts are basal to afloat clasp AI successful these sectors?

To afloat clasp AI, telecom and media companies must acquisition a taste displacement toward becoming data-driven organizations. This requires fostering a mindset of continuous learning and invention crossed each departments. AI take is not conscionable an IT initiative, it requires cross-department collaboration, peculiarly betwixt IT, customer service, and operations. Companies must put successful AI talent and attraction connected reskilling their existing workforce to guarantee they person nan skills to negociate and activity alongside AI systems. Furthermore, adopting agile methodologies will beryllium important to allowing organizations to quickly iterate and optimize their AI solutions. Strong activity is basal to thrust these changes and guarantee that AI initiatives align pinch wide business objectives, peculiarly improving customer acquisition while driving business results.

How does nan acquisition of Starfish Associates fortify Persistent’s AI-powered interaction halfway and unified communications capabilities?

The acquisition of Starfish Associates importantly enhances Persistent’s position successful nan AI-powered interaction halfway and unified communications space. This strategical acquisition builds connected our existing engineering capabilities successful nan Contact Center and Unified Communications domain, expanding our AI-driven business translator expertise and reinforcing our attraction connected operational excellence. Starfish Associates is known for its cutting-edge Enterprise Communications automation platform, which serves immoderate of nan world’s largest enterprises, including galore Fortune 500 companies. When mixed pinch Persistent’s strengths successful AI-driven automation, this acquisition allows america to connection moreover much powerful, integrated solutions that streamline workflows, heighten customer engagement, and amended operational efficiency.

Data information and privateness are apical concerns for organizations successful telecom—how is Persistent addressing these successful AI-enabled customer work solutions?

Data information and privateness are captious concerns, particularly successful nan telecom industry, wherever customer information is delicate and highly regulated. At Persistent, we thief telecom companies navigate these challenges by implementing AI solutions that guarantee information protection astatine each step. We support our clients successful achieving compliance pinch world regulations specified arsenic GDPR, CCPA, and different information protection laws, embedding privateness safeguards wrong their AI-powered customer work operations.

We assistance clients successful integrating robust information features, including encryption, anonymization, and entree controls, to unafraid information passim its lifecycle. Additionally, we guarantee transparency by helping clients support afloat power complete their data, offering clear visibility into really it’s utilized and managed. By providing ongoing AI exemplary audits and consequence assessments, we guarantee that our solutions stay secure, compliant, and adaptable arsenic regulations evolve, giving our clients nan assurance to leverage AI technologies responsibly while maintaining customer trust.

Finally, what does occurrence look for illustration to you erstwhile it comes to AI-powered customer acquisition for telecom players complete nan adjacent 5 years?

Over nan adjacent 5 years, AI will redefine nan domiciled of interaction centers successful nan telecom industry. Success will beryllium measured by nan expertise of telecom companies to toggle shape accepted telephone centers into proactive customer engagement hubs. Agentic AI will toggle shape telecom customer acquisition by proactively resolving issues, offering personalized support, and enabling autonomous work actions crossed channels. Learning from interactions to accommodate successful existent clip ensures faster, smarter, and much human-like engagement, which is cardinal for customer acquisition transformation.

By offloading 50%-60% of regular customer work tasks to Agentic AI, telecom operators tin amended ratio while allowing quality agents to attraction connected much analyzable issues. Predictive analytics will play a pivotal domiciled successful anticipating customer needs, while omnichannel integration will guarantee a seamless acquisition crossed each touchpoints.

At Persistent, we thief telecom and media companies instrumentality Agentic AI solutions that thrust invention and amended customer interactions. Our expertise successful AI and telecom enables nan creation of smarter, much agile interaction centers, leveraging information to align pinch business goals. Looking ahead, our extremity is to thief these organizations securely infuse AI crossed their operations, deepening their relationship pinch customers and positioning them for occurrence successful a quickly evolving integer landscape.

Thank you for nan awesome interview, readers who wish to study much should sojourn Persistent Systems.