Internet service provider Exetel has unveiled a new customer support system that uses artificial intelligence to solve user connection and other support issues online. The Calliope system, developed by Exetel and the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, is the result of an eight-year bid to bake intelligence into the ISP's customer management systems. The new system was developed over the past two years at the institute, and aims to respond to simple questions that would otherwise be fielded by call centre staff. Exetel CEO Steve Waddington told Sri Lankan media last week that by automatically answering common user issues online - often by pointing them to a centralised wiki of support information - the new system freed up support engineers' time and reduced the company's support costs. Waddington drew parallels between the system and the'Siri' feature on Apple iPhones, which translated user requests in natural language - as opposed to set commands - to deliver answers from a variety of sources.