Huawei, the world's largest telecommunications equipment provider formed a partnership with Afiniti, the applied artificial intelligence start-up company. The first-of-its-kind partnership will embed Afiniti's AI technology into Huawei's telephony platform, meaning Huawei's clients across the world can implement Afiniti's AI more rapidly and efficiently. The partnership with Huawei is the first native integration of its kind for Afiniti, and is expected to open up a number of new clients and markets.

The partnership was announced at a signing ceremony with Afiniti's CEO, Zia Chishti in Shanghai on Thursday, and comes hot on the heels of Huawei's statement that it was introducing new blood into the company in order to lead its next phase of growth. Whilst the impact will likely take some time to realise, the Afiniti partnership could give Huawei a clear differentiator as it eyes up expansion into western markets. Huawei's rotating CEO, Guo Ping said "Afiniti is a proven technology partner, and we are pleased to join forces with them so that our customers can make full use of their innovative products. We are excited to be working with them."

Rather than replace call centre operators, companies like T-Mobile and PTCL are using Afiniti's AI platform to drive improved results from existing employees - by simply using AI to learn from historic interactions to better pair customers with their call centre representatives, and delivering an upwards of 5 percent improvement in sales outcomes and retention.-PR

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017