By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM, June 18 (Reuters) - U.S. telecom company

Verizon is using generative AI to stop 100,000 customers

from leaving its service this year by predicting why a customer

is calling, connecting them with a suitable agent and reducing

store visit time, CEO Hans Vestberg said on Tuesday.

The company receives around 170 million calls every year and

with GenAI it can now determine 80% of the time why a customer

is calling, he said. "I have 60,000 call agents and I know what

they are really good at so I can match your call with the right

agent," he added, saying this would mean 100,000 customers

staying with Verizon.

Earlier this year, Verizon launched several GenAI-backed

initiatives focused on customer service. Other companies such as

Swedish fintech Klarna have been using GenAI to cut response

time in handling customers and save costs.

"We already have four generative AI products in commercial

use," Vestberg said at the Future Talent Summit in Stockholm.

"We have 1,500 data points on each telephone number," he

said. "We don't expose the data for anybody else. We run all our

data, large language models inside our network, not outside."

Verizon has about 70 million store visits every year, and

the company can personalize any offer as soon as a customer

visits, cutting roughly seven minutes per store visit, he said.

It had reported about 145 million wireless retail

connections in 2023. Its churn rate, percentage of customers who

stopped using the company's services, hovered around 1%.

"We believe this year we can have less churn ... it's an

experience for you, for my employee, and ultimately I'll make

some more money," Vestberg said.