Italiaonline pushes artificial intelligence for SMEs

Italiaonline brings artificial intelligence into the daily work of small and medium-sized enterprises. It does so through the launch of a virtual assistant designed to manage part of the front office activities: answering calls, acquiring business contacts and organising appointments.

"Mario" - the service has been humanised by Italiaonline even in its name - is available to the group's more than 200,000 corporate customers. The novelty is part of a context in which rapidity of response and presiding over the initial contact weigh ever more heavily in the customer relationship.

More than 30 per cent of customers switch suppliers without an immediate response and 22 per cent of consumers now also search for local businesses using artificial intelligence tools. It is at this junction that the AI system designed to reduce the dispersion of business contacts and automate activities that for many SMEs remain difficult to cover on a continuous basis.

The stated aim is to simplify the work of smaller companies by offering support that until now was often the preserve of more structured organisations. Umberto Poschi, chief web & media services officer of Italiaonline, emphasises that 'the launch of Mario demonstrates that AI is no longer a tool reserved for large companies with large budgets. With this service we show that an AI-based workforce is a concrete and scalable resource, capable of supporting any professional reality: from the plumber to the restaurateur, from the lawyer to the local retailer'.

For Italiaonline, which in the consumer segment reaches 24 million unique users per month and in the SME business serves more than 200,000 companies, the launch of Mario represents a further step in its strategy to develop digital services and automation tools for the small and medium-sized company market.