IMC 2024: Reliance Jio demos PhoneCall AI, a call transcription service

Although the feature is still in testing stages, here’s what we learned about Jio PhoneCall AI at IMC 2024.

The Jio PhoneCall AI booth at IMC 2024. (Image: Karan Mahadik/The Indian Express)

Jio’s PhoneCall AI, the telecom giant’s highly anticipated feature for transcribing and summarising phone calls, potentially sparks serious concerns around privacy and data protection.

Showcasing its latest AI innovations at the 2024 India Mobile Congress, Reliance Jio offered attendees an exclusive preview of PhoneCall AI, currently in alpha testing.

First introduced at Reliance’s 47th annual general meeting in August, this feature allows Jio subscribers to use AI to automatically transcribe phone calls. It can also summarise conversations and translate them into other languages.

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“This [PhoneCall AI] allows anyone to easily capture and access important voice conversations, making them searchable, shareable, and understandable across languages — all with just a few clicks,” Jio said.

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To ensure transparency, the company initially claimed the service would periodically notify all parties that the call is being recorded. However, the IMC demonstration of PhoneCall AI lacked such disclosures. Informing all participants that their conversation is being recorded and transcribed by AI is essential to safeguarding their privacy.

How to use PhoneCall AI

While still in the testing phase, here’s what we learned about PhoneCall AI at IMC 2024. Reliance Jio subscribers will likely need to opt in via the MyJio app, meaning it won’t be enabled by default for all users. Upon opting in, subscribers will provide consent for their calls to be recorded and stored on Jio’s servers.

Transcript of a phone call generated using Jio’s PhoneCall AI feature. (Image: Karan Mahadik/The Indian Express)

To get started, users would add the PhoneCall AI number (1-800-732-673) as a participant to the ongoing call. The recording process begins after pressing #1 and ends by pressing #3. Approximately two minutes later, Jio sends the AI-generated transcript and summary of the call via SMS or WhatsApp.

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The AI-generated transcription of a phone call can be translated into other languages such as Kannada.

The AI-generated transcript of a phone call can be translated into other languages such as Kannada. (Image: Karan Mahadik/The Indian Express)

The AI-generated transcript and summary are not automatically shared with other call participants. Jio’s PhoneCall AI is powered by an in-house AI model that reportedly achieves 90% accuracy, according to technicians at Jio’s IMC booth.

Potential concerns with PhoneCall AI

Jio says that recorded calls will be stored on JioCloud in an encrypted format, with each subscriber receiving 100 GB of free storage. However, it remains unclear whether recordings, transcriptions, and translations will be stored outside the subscriber’s JioCloud. There is also no clarity on whether these recordings will be used to train Jio’s AI model.

Also Read | Reliance Jio’s latest 4G feature phones are almost smartphones

Speaking at IMC 2024 on October 15, Reliance Jio Chairman Akash Ambani emphasized the importance of data localization and called on the Indian government to update its data center policy.

AI tools like JioBrain, Glam AR, Bharat Diffusion, AI Headshots, and Fify — a fashion chatbot from Reliance-owned Fynd — were also showcased at this year’s India Mobile Congress.