How NTT DATA is rebuilding the enterprise service desk with Ema

NTT DATA is one of the world's largest application and infrastructure providers, running the IT service desks that global enterprises depend on. Its mission is to make everyday life simpler through technology — serving clients whose workforces span geographies, time zones, and languages.

NTT DATA's service desk teams handled thousands of calls a week for enterprise clients, but the traditional model meant every call carried more friction — and more cost — than it should.

The experience was built around menus, not resolution. Rigid, menu-driven phone flows forced employees through the same tree regardless of their issue. A stuck laptop, an expired password, a blocked access request — every one began with a wait, and work stopped until the queue moved.

Humans were consumed by routine toil. The people staffing the desk spent their days on password resets and access requests instead of the complex issues that actually needed human judgment. The thousandth reset looked exactly like the first.

Scale made it worse, not better. For a global, frontline-heavy workforce operating in 15+ languages, consistency was nearly impossible — accuracy suffered across languages, and more volume simply meant more human agents, more queues, more of the same. The economics never improved with scale.

The result was an experience that frustrated employees, a cost base that grew linearly with volume, and service quality that depended on individual agents compensating for the model around them.

The focus is on resolving the actual issue, rather than trying to pass the issue to a human agent.

Abhinav Rajan

Global Head of Business, NTT DATA

NTT DATA is adopting Ema as the voice AI front line for IT support (e.g., password reset) across its customer base.

From phone tree to front line

NTT DATA deployed Ema's voice AI as the first point of contact for a Fortune 100 global insurer's IT service desk (customer zero) — integrated with the client's existing telephony and ITSM systems, with no rip-and-replace.

Orchestrates across systems

Connects to telephony systems (e.g., genesys) and ticketing systems (e.g., servicenow) to give one seamless experience

Resolve the issue, don't route it. Ema doesn't triage callers toward a human queue. It answers, acts, and orchestrates across the systems behind the desk — resetting the password, provisioning the access, closing the ticket — while the employee is still on the call.

Every language, one conversation. Callers can switch between multiple languages mid-conversation, critical for a global, frontline-heavy workforce. No separate lines, no language menus, no accuracy trade-off at scale.

Volume that compounds. We now handle more than a million calls per annum across NTT DATA's base — with the unit economics improving as volume grows, not degrading.

NTT DATA's service desk model now inverts the traditional equation: the AI absorbs the volume, and humans see only what genuinely needs them.

Scale. Ema can handle 1M+ calls at scale

Resolution, not deflection. 90–95% of employee queries are resolved end to end by Ema — the issue closed, not the call ended.

A desk that speaks the workforce's language. 15+ languages, switchable mid-sentence, with consistent accuracy across all of them.

Ema is able to answer, act, and orchestrate - this is a game changer. The real advantage of Ema is that they are outcome focused. Their team of FDEs sit with you to understand the problem and then Ema can create custom workflows to address your unique requirements.

Abhinav Rajan

Global Head of Business, NTT DATA

For NTT DATA, Ema is no longer a deployment. It is the human + AI service desk model the firm now takes to every enterprise client, carrying the same promise to each: a service desk that just fixes things, in any language, at any scale.