Euroconsumers’ new AI Agent: taking trusted, tailored consumer-centered advice into the future

Ollie is the new AI Agent built by and available to members of Euroconsumers’ organizations in Spain, Belgium, Italy and Portugal. It is built exclusively on their articles, product tests, expert views and research analysis. 

It’s just one illustration of how Euroconsumers are redefining the value consumer organisations can offer in the innovation era — by showing how to build AI solutions that put consumers first. 

While the risks of AI for consumers occupy minds, we must not forget that responsible innovation is the imperative. Euroconsumers are working to shape a future where AI serves people, empowers consumers and advances markets in their favour.

CEO Antonio Balhanas is leading an AI transformation at Euroconsumers, to create the AI tools that consumers and consumer organizations must have to succeed in the future: 

We sat down with Rui Mendes, Chief Transformation Officer and Arnaud Massaert, Chief Product Officer to find out more about their vision for AI and what it takes to design technology for consumers’ needs and expectations. 

How did Euroconsumers shape its approach to consumer-facing AI?     

Rui Mendes: “We started the journey by identifying where AI can help us to promote new capabilities, and where it can support the capabilities we already have and magnify them.  Euroconsumers’ members’ channels and websites now have an online assistant to support consumers, so with more data they could evolve into the new system – this was the baseline from which we start designing the future.”  

How do you describe an AI Agent like Ollie? 

Rui Mendes: “An AI agent needs to have its own purpose that fits what you actually need. It needs to be flexible to, shaped to and responsive to your needs – a companion, a supporter at a key moment when you want a strong answer to help you make a decision.” 

Ollie in action: 

Ollie’s interface looks a lot like a generic AI agent, where people can enter questions, prompts and parameters for products they are looking for.  The difference is that information returned is based on Euroconsumers’ members’ trusted sources with answers clearly and objectively based on Euroconsumers members’ independent tests and analyses. Its responses come back with more context too, for example explaining why something has a particular score, or giving information on after-purchase service so that all the information a consumer needs is presented simply, in one place.

How did you develop AI Agents at Euroconsumers? 

Arnaud Massaert: “My role as Chief Product Officer was created to cut across the different products and product lines we offer and think about how new customer journeys could work for someone engaging with our consumer organisations. 

We’re at the early stages of this transition, and I’m responsible for developing what new products and services might be for a consumer, for example, apps, websites, tools. In terms of energy suppliers, instead of just thinking about providing information on how to switch provider, we’re looking at the best tools we can offer a consumer to switch – one where you might upload your invoice and the tool identifies the best deal. 

That’s for today, but tomorrow it could be a constant link to enable energy supplier switching every month, like a permanent intermediary. For today’s market, we want to offer one door as a touchpoint for different services that matter to consumers.”  

What does Ollie offer that other AI Agents can’t?  

Arnaud Massaert: “We offer trust and data. Other services may also have data and technology, but we have a legacy of data, and most importantly, consumer trust.  There is a problem with the reliability of information available through other AIs, LLMs are trained on past data from the internet and so sometimes inject inaccurate or outdated information. General questions are OK for getting simple answers but for some cases it’s important to have a trusted ally, where you can quickly validate richer information.

Euroconsumers’ AI agent is only using our internal data, tests, articles, expert knowhow and we know that this is true today.  We have a huge legacy of data, which is a positive as we can use past data and show that to be useful, we always know if it is up to date and if it is accurate. Lists from ChatGPT will probably give similar results to Ollie, but there will be no narrative or context. 

For example, it might say that ‘this is the best washing machine for that price, but based on complaints, consumers say they break too soon’. We also have brand data from our consumer members about things like customer service which helps to build a full picture.” 

Rui Mendes also sees valuable data from the questions consumers are asking in real-time:

“The AI agent transforms the way we do things, we can now more easily build together and learn from consumers as we now have a way to communicate with them and understand them better. 

For example, some weeks ago, we started to see that more questions were being raised about how the Iran war would affect energy prices, so immediately we saw what we needed to explain to customers – it enables us to act quite fast to find the best picture.

What else could Ollie do in the future?

Arnaud Massaert: “In future, we want to add a lot more information about the after-sales life of a product, focusing on how to clean or maintain an appliance over its lifetime of the product so it lasts etc.  And then, if it’s at the end of its life, which companies might take it back? Or if it breaks, how could you fix it? The circular economy is really important right now with opportunities in the second hand market, we can also build up data on the quality of refurbished products.

Moreover, Ollie gives us a direct line to our members. Every interaction is a signal, a live read  on what people actually expect from us, what they are asking for, what they are struggling with. This is what will shape Ollie’s next version.”

How are you building trustworthy, scalable, and responsible AI agents?  

Rui Mendes: “One of our major concerns as a consumer rights organisation was how to take privacy and security guardrails into account. We did a lot of testing before we went live – we took very seriously our ethical AI test, and very seriously the AI Act when we were building and training the guardrails.  

The AI Act is already a good tool and a good starting point, so we could see best practices and implement them, and implement the parts on ethics and transparency, for example providing reasoning and sources.  All of these are quite important for the customer.”

Arnaud Massaert explains how careful consideration is given to where the AI agent works:

“There are some domains where we cannot afford the risk, for example answers to legal questions need to be totally accurate. 

We do a lot of testing, monitoring and follow questions, evaluating questions and answers as they go along to spot any risks.  We triage the conversation of an agent and score it for quality and accuracy and where scores are low take action.  

For example, someone asked where to buy a TV without adverts, which should be recognised as a mistaken question as it’s the streaming platform that controls the ads not the TV product. This is something a human advisor could easily spot, but how successful is an AI agent?”

How else do Euroconsumers members respond to consumer problems or worries about using the AI agent? 

Rui Mendes: “Some consumers have concerns about AI hallucinating answers, but we have good monitoring on top, so when we see problems we refine them and that seems quite positive. 

We also still have the human contact available through our customer service, so if customers are not happy then they can reach us through calls and emails. Also, when Ollie does not have answers, we can answer in another way, by saying ‘I don’t know how to answer, you can try this article, or calling us’. So in this way we keep talking with customers and are responsive.”

Has Ollie been popular with your members? 

Rui Mendes: “At the moment, you need to be a member of the consumer organization, you can register to have a free trial for a certain number of questions then you must join as a member to have access.  We’re seeing adherence to the usage from members and consumers, the percentages are growing month by month, people are getting more and more interested in how they can use it.”

You’ve built a product across the different national organizations that make up Euroconsumers, how did you bring everyone together? 

Arnaud Massaert: “I visited all the national members to understand their challenges, how digitally mature they are, how many apps they already had in which markets and which were the biggest successes. We held workshops with three or four people from each organization, covering different functions like marketing, IT, legal etc. When we decided to develop AI agents, each country then had the autonomy and mandate to make decisions based on what was best for them.” 

Rui Mendes: “I started with a team where most came from different places, were not all experts in AI but they came with new ways of doing things, new ways of identifying problems, solutions that we wouldn’t have come up with before.  

But, my team does not work alone – actually they work with every department – and one very important stakeholder are the legal and data protection teams across the organizations, they need to be quite involved to understand the journey, why we’re doing it, and how we are applying and are compliant with data protection rules, security and  international data transfers.  Really, it’s a must that we are hand in hand with the legal department, with the commercial department, with our product office, so we can work all together to create a new product”.  

Why do you think consumer organizations need to innovate and disrupt to keep consumers empowered and protected?

Rui Mendes: “I think this is the best way to accomplish consumer needs and what consumers are expecting from us – good, right answers, transparency, and the best way to look after them in the market, how we can protect them and be with them at big moments in their life. We are in the beginning of a wonderful journey, and we are very proud about what we have achieved.”

Arnaud Massaert is more direct: “If we don’t innovate, we will die. We have to catch the attention of people. If you are getting 25 push notifications from apps on a daily basis, who can you really trust if you have an issue with a flight? Or if you think you have been scammed – how do you know what to do next?  We are close to the market, and know its weaknesses so we are in prime place to support consumers, but we have to work hard to keep their attention with innovative, digital services.”

Check out Ollie in action on this video from DECO PROteste (in Portuguese).