Case Study: IP Australia achieves 80% first-contact resolution and reduced contact-center calls with Nuance Communications' Nina virtual assistant (Alex)

Meet IP Australia’s new virtual assistant – ‘Alex’

IP Australia, the Australian Government agency that administers patents, trade marks, designs and plant breeder’s rights, needed a more agile, customer‑centric online experience that could answer complex IP queries 24x7x365. Static FAQs were hard for customers to navigate given the volume and complexity of IP information, and phone support was costly and limited to business hours. To address this, IP Australia partnered with Nuance Communications and implemented the Nuance Nina intelligent virtual assistant.

Nuance Communications built “Alex” using Nuance Nina and deployed her on IP Australia’s website, integrating AI/NLP capabilities and a seamless handoff to live chat for complex cases. The solution resolved roughly 80% of inquiries routed to Alex, drove a reported 15% reduction in calls to contact center agents, handled over 50,000 conversations (about 3,300/month) in the first year, and improved customer satisfaction through contextual, human‑like interactions and smooth escalation to agents when needed.

IP Australia

Patricia Kelly

Director General