Marcone, a Creve Coeur-based distributor of home appliances and parts, has turned to artificial intelligence to help service technicians better pinpoint needed repairs.
The distributor has launched MarconeAI, which uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology and seeks to provide a “diagnostic tool” for technicians to understand the type of repair that is needed before making a service call. Marcone is offering the technology at no cost to service repair companies, it said.
Marcone distributes home and commercial kitchen appliances, HVAC, plumbing, and pool and spa parts and equipment and has about $2 billion in sales. It operates with 200 locations and 2,000 total employees. The company is an authorized distributor for major brands such as Whirlpool, Electrolux, General Electric, Maytag, Bosch, Samsung and L-G.
Marcone has described its MarconeAI technology as being a tool to help technicians “make the right repair the first time.” It uses ChatGPT’s generative AI technology to source information to help determine the “most likely repair needed” for an appliance, according to the company. Generative AI is technology that can “produce various types of content, including text, imagery and audio,” according to TechTarget.
In offering an example of how the technology is used, Marcone CEO Avichal Jain said a service technician can enter into ChatGPT information about an appliance and the issues with it. If a refrigerator isn’t cooling and makes a rattling sound, Jain said a technician could enter in that information, as well as the model number of the appliance. With that information, ChatGPT would then scour the internet and proprietary service data and provide the technician with information regarding what could be the problem to help determine the type of fix and the parts needed for repair, Jain said.
The diagnostic tool isn’t meant to be a silver bullet for discovering needed repairs, Jain said, adding he hopes it helps technicians be better prepared ahead of service calls. He said a goal of the new technology is to help reduce the amount of times service companies show up for repairs and don’t have the necessary parts needed.
“I think this is a perfect use of AI combined with your traditional intelligence,” Jain said.
MarconeAI was developed by an incubator team inside Marcone that focuses on coming up with new and innovative technologies and processes the company can implement, Jain said.
“This was an idea that was worth putting into production,” he said.
The development of MarconeAI took about 90 days. Jain said that included 30 days taking the technology from ideation to proof of concept, another 30 days of tweaking and then an additional 30 more days to finalize it for launch. Jain said the launch of MarconeAI is part of a broader focus on technology at Marcone, which he said views itself as a technology company that happens to be a parts distributor. While he said the company isn’t on the bleeding edge of technology development, it prides itself on being a quick adopter as new innovations are created.
“We are always looking at new and improved ways of using technology to make servicers’ life easier,” Jain said. “When the service industry is better, we are better because we serve them.”
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