BT Group Accelerates Productivity with Generative AI

BT Group is one of the largest providers of fixed and mobile telecommunications in the United Kingdom, serving customers in over 180 countries worldwide. Founded in 1980, the company provides services to private consumers, businesses, public sector organizations, and more. Continually seeking ways to enhance operational efficiency and deliver superior services to customers, BT Group identified its document processing workflows as a critical area for improvement.

BT Group handled a wide array of documents, ranging from customer contracts and invoices to technical manuals and even handwritten notes. Employees needed to review each document manually to extract key information, which was time-consuming. They also needed to validate that this information was accurate and verify compliance with regulatory requirements. Because of this complexity, BT Group was not able to scale to handle large volumes of documents during peak periods or business expansions. The company wanted to develop a more scalable, reliable, and efficient tool for automating document processing, so it engaged AWS Premier Tier Services Partner Wipro—a global IT, consulting, and business process services company.

“AWS is a key cloud provider for BT Group,” says Dr. Reza Dilmaghani, head of data science and analytics, AI practice at Wipro. “As a trusted AWS Partner with a strong relationship with the AWS team and existing infrastructure on AWS, we set out to deliver scalable and efficient solutions that are built using AWS services and that align with BT Group’s strategic objectives.”

To streamline document processing while optimizing costs, BT Group began to explore AI solutions on AWS. The company chose Wipro as its implementation partner due to Wipro's proven expertise in delivering enterprise-scale AI solutions. With an established presence in over 60 countries and deep experience in telecommunications, Wipro was well-positioned to understand BT Group's complex document processing needs. First, Wipro comprehensively assessed BT Group’s existing infrastructure and identified areas for improvement. Then, the teams worked together to design a cloud architecture that would align with BT Group’s business goals and requirements. They conducted a proof of concept to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed solution, assessing the incorporation, scalability, and performance of AWS services in real-world scenarios.

BT Group’s new intelligent solution for document processing uses generative AI to automatically extract key attributes from a wide variety of documents, thus removing the need for manual data entry. This capability is powered by Amazon Textract, a service that automatically extracts text, handwriting, layout elements, and data from scanned documents. The extracted information is then stored in Amazon DynamoDB, a serverless, NoSQL database service, to facilitate efficient search and retrieval. Using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)—an object storage service built to retrieve virtually any amount of data from anywhere—BT Group can securely store and manage the vast volumes of documents that are processed by the automated solution. This means that the company can seamlessly scale up and down to accommodate its fluctuating needs.

By successfully implementing an intelligent solution for document processing, BT Group has empowered its business to work fast and smart. And by automating the extraction of key information, the company has dramatically reduced the time and effort required for data entry. Using the new AI-driven approach, the company has accelerated document processing from weeks to minutes. It has also greatly improved accuracy by using AI-driven text extraction to minimize the errors and inconsistencies that result from manual data entry and document handling.

Moreover, BT Group can maintain compliance with strict regulations by harnessing the robust security features that AWS provides. AWS adheres to stringent security standards, compliance certifications, and a shared responsibility model. Thus, BT Group can validate the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its document data. It can also quickly capture and process critical information on AWS in accordance with regulatory requirements. BT Group has also achieved cost savings of 25 percent by adopting the automated solution while reducing manual effort and enhancing operational efficiency. Using scalable services such as Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB, the company has removed the need for up-front capital investments in hardware and storage infrastructure. It can scale to accommodate growing document volumes and fluctuating processing needs. And because BT Group pays for only the resources it consumes, it reduced infrastructure maintenance costs even further and did away with overprovisioning.

Looking ahead, BT Group plans to bring the solution to other areas of its business and is actively exploring new projects that are based on AI and automation. “We will continue our partnership with Wipro on AWS to drive further innovation and efficiency across our document management processes,” says Anju Jose, senior manager of operations and business delivery for Tower Division Networks at BT Group.