Innovation for the benefit of all 

At Orange, we believe that innovation should be useful and a source of progress for everyone. Every day, our researchers (numbering nearly 700) work alongside Group employees and their academic and industrial partners. 77 cooperative projects are being carried out with French, European and global players. The aim is to design and develop the technologies of the future for our customers, in a spirit of ethical and sustainable innovation. With a portfolio of 10,500 patents, over 200 new inventions protected in 2023 and 2,000 licensees worldwide, we have become Europe’s leading intellectual property operator. 

And because we want to go even further, with the belief that the best way to do so is collectively, we are continuing our open innovation strategy: integrating start-ups into our ecosystem and providing financial support for innovation. We do this through Orange Ventures, our venture capital fund dedicated to investments in areas of strategic interest (cybersecurity, IT, etc.) or emerging fields (e-health, gaming, etc.). 

In addition, given the central role played by AI for our customers and for us, we have entered a new era, scaling up this technology while ensuring that it is used in an ethical and responsible manner. Our ambition is to accelerate the use of AI and create value in all our businesses, networks and customer relationships. In 2024, we’re accelerating the deployment of AI across the Group and harnessing the full potential of this technology in the areas of operational efficiency, customer experience and network optimization.  

Improving operational efficiency  

In 2023, we deployed an in-house generative AI solution available to all our employees to develop the use and adoption of this type of tool in their professional activities. This secure, easy-to-use solution provides access to several services such as chat, document analysis, meeting summarization and code and image generation. It is based on several large generative AI language models (LLMs), including GPT-4, OpenAI’s DALL-E and Mistral Large, and has been designed to integrate the latest models from leading AI providers.   

This solution complies with the Group’s security and data protection requirements. Deployed in a secure environment, it guarantees that data will not be used outside the company, for system learning for example.   

For Orange, this is the first step in a long-term commitment and strategic investment aimed at upskilling employees and equipping them to use the latest tools, technologies and best practices in generative AI.  

Accessible to the vast majority of its 137,000 employees worldwide, the solution is now used by one in six employees, eight months after its launch, with more than 7,500 users every week.  

Reinventing the customer experience with AI    

At Orange, in our constant quest for excellence, we are leveraging the potential of AI to reinvent the customer experience. In 2024, our ambition is to make widespread use of this technology in Europe, having seen significant improvements in customer satisfaction in our marketing campaigns in Poland, Africa and the Middle East, thanks to a more effective and targeted approach.     

We will also be taking advantage of the latest advances in AI to support and assist our call centre advisors by deploying a chatbot, already tested in Spain, Romania, Poland and Luxembourg, in several of our countries. This will enable them to access relevant information more efficiently and dynamically, guaranteeing fast, accurate responses to customer queries.     

In Europe, generative AI is transforming our processes. In Romania, it has enabled us to analyse over 50% of customer interactions, compared with 1% previously, providing unprecedented insight into the quality of our service. In Spain, it facilitates the creation of systematic summaries of customer exchanges, and also enriches the WhatsApp user experience by means of a dedicated chatbot.     

Using AI on a daily basis, at Orange we are learning and adapting to improve our services. And we are committed to developing the use of these new technologies in an ethical and responsible way, ensuring data security and confidentiality. Generative AI is not just an optimization tool, it is a vector of innovation at the heart of our strategy to differentiate ourselves, reinforce customer excellence and offer unrivalled customer experiences that create value for all.    

Making networks smarter  

Artificial Intelligence is also useful for optimizing and more effectively managing our network operations. How? By leveraging preventive maintenance, which uses sensors to measure temperature and voltage to provide real-time data on the state of health of equipment. By analyzing this data, we can detect abnormal behavior and anticipate the need to intervene on power supplies, batteries or air conditioning systems, without waiting to replace them.   

Beyond preventive maintenance, network data monitoring enables real-time detection of anomalies. In just a few minutes, problems can be identified – at one or more sites – and their origin determined. Most remedies can be implemented without on-site intervention, by changing network settings, for example. And if on-site intervention is required, the technician is provided with a summary of this pre-investigation information.   

To avoid overloading the mobile network, we have deployed in several countries an AI algorithm capable of predicting traffic congestion by analyzing and learning the behavior of radio quality indicators across multiple network cells. Network parameters are then modified in real time to optimize traffic distribution on the cells concerned.   

AI is also being used to optimize mobile network planning in several countries in Africa and the Middle East. By combining commercial and technical data with machine learning, Orange is able to optimize its mobile network investments in each country.