Generative ai customer support accelerator

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2025334963-A1
Application number	US-202418645628-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Apr 25, 2024
Priority date	Apr 25, 2024
Publication date	Oct 30, 2025
Grant date	—

Abstract

An industrial technical support system leverages generative artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to generate technical support guidance and recommendations in response to natural language technical support requests submitted as natural language input. The system can maintain and leverage one or more sets of custom models trained with sets of domain-specific training data specific for different industrial domains. When a natural language technical support query is received, the system leverages the domain-specific training data as well as responses prompted form a generative AI model to formulate and render technical support recommendations for addressing a performance or design issue described by the query.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A system, comprising:
a memory that stores executable components; and a processor, operatively coupled to the memory, that executes the executable components, the executable components comprising:
a user interface component configured to receive, from a client device as natural language input, a query describing a performance issue relating to an industrial automation system for which technical support is requested; and
a generative artificial intelligence (AI) component configured to, in response to receipt of the query, formulate a prompt, directed to a generative AI model, designed to obtain a response from the generative AI model comprising information used by the generative AI component to generate a natural language technical support response describing a recommendation for addressing the performance issue, wherein the generative AI component generates the prompt based on analysis of the query and a selected subset of industrial training data encoded in one or more custom models,
wherein the user interface component is configured to render the natural language technical support response on the client device.

2 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a training component configured to train the one or more custom models with the industrial training data, wherein the industrial training data comprises at least one of libraries of product manuals for different types of industrial devices or software platforms, help files, vendor knowledgebase data, information defining industrial standards, technical specifics for different types of industrial control applications, information describing specifics of different industrial verticals, information regarding industrial best practices, or archived technical support chat sessions with the system.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the query comprises at least one of a description of observed behavior of a device or machine of the industrial automation system, a description of an error code or alarm observed on an industrial device, a request for example control code for performing a described control function, a request for recommended configuration settings for an industrial device that will cause the industrial device to operate in a described manner, a question regarding how to perform a specified maintenance task on a machine of the industrial automation system, a question regarding an estimated amount of time to perform a specified maintenance task, or a request for suggested maintenance actions to perform on a device or machine of the industrial automation system.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein
the industrial training data comprises at least archived technical support chat sessions comprising previous queries submitted to the system and corresponding technical support responses generated by the generative AI component, and the selected subset of the industrial training data comprises a subset of the archived technical support chat sessions determined to address a technical support issue similar to the performance issue described by the query.

5 . The system of claim 1 , further comprising a training component configured to train the one or more custom models using the query and the natural language technical support response.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein
the system stores multiple sets of domain-specific custom models, including the one or more custom models, that are trained with respective sets of domain-specific training data corresponding to respective different industrial domains, and the generative AI component is configured to at least one of formulate the prompt or the natural language technical support response based on analysis of the query and the selected subset of the industrial training data encoded in a set of domain-specific custom models, of the multiple sets of domain-specific custom models, corresponding to an industrial domain to which the query pertains.

7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the industrial domain is at least one of food and beverage, pharmaceutical, automotive, textiles, mining, oil and gas, power generation, semiconductors, or life sciences.

8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the generative AI component is configured to formulate the prompt directed to the generative AI model in response to inferring that the response from the generative AI model will cause the natural language technical support response to have a probability of accurately addressing the performance issue described by the query that exceeds a probability threshold.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the generative AI component is configured to formulate the prompt to include at least one of information extracted or inferred from the query, an identify of an industrial asset affected by the performance issue, a description of the performance issue being experienced, a type of industrial application being performed by the industrial automation system, an industrial vertical in which the industrial automation system operates, or the selected subset of the industrial training data.

10 . A method, comprising:
receiving, by a system comprising a processor from a client device, a query formatted as a natural language input, wherein the query describes a performance issue relating to an industrial automation system for which technical support is requested; in response to the receiving, formulating, by the system based on analysis of the query and a selected subset of industrial training data encoded in one or more custom models, a prompt directed to a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, wherein the prompt is formulated to obtain a response from the generative AI model comprising information used by the system to generate a natural language technical support response describing a recommendation for addressing the performance issue; and rendering, by the system, the natural language technical support response on the client device.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising training, by the system, the one or more custom models with the industrial training data, wherein the industrial training data comprises at least one of libraries of product manuals for different types of industrial devices or software platforms, help files, vendor knowledgebase data, information defining industrial standards, technical specifics for different types of industrial control applications, information describing specifics of different industrial verticals, information regarding industrial best practices, or archived technical support chat sessions with the system.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the query comprises at least one of a description of observed behavior of a device or machine of the industrial automation system, a description of an error code or alarm observed on an industrial device, a request for example control code for performing a described control function, a request for recommended configuration settings for an industrial device that will cause the industrial device to operate in a described manner, a question regarding how to perform a specified maintenance task on a machine of the industrial automation system, a question regarding an estimated amount of time to perform a specified maintenance task, or a request for suggested maintenance actions to perform on a device or machine of the industrial automation system.

13 . The method of claim 10 , wherein
the industrial training data comprises at least archived technical support chat data comprising previous queries submitted to the system and corresponding technical support responses generated by the system, and the selected subset of the industrial training data comprises a

Assignees

• Rockwell Automation Tech Inc

Inventors

• Maturana Francisco P
• He Meiling
• Dey Patrick
• Nardecchia Christopher
• Mills Jonathan A

Classifications

• G05B23/0272 Primary

  Presentation of monitored results, e.g. selection of status reports to be displayed; Filtering information to the user · CPC title

• G05B23/0281

  Quantitative, e.g. mathematical distance; Clustering; Neural networks; Statistical analysis · CPC title

• G05B23/0229 Primary

  knowledge based, e.g. expert systems; genetic algorithms · CPC title