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AT&T is issuing a New application on Wednesday, replacing the MyAT&T app previously used to manage account options for both mobile and broadband customers. It includes a new AI-based chat assistant, parental controls, and more details on call and data usage.
Typically, an app release is not newsworthy in itself. But carrier apps have become the central way people interact with wireless and home Internet services, from checking and paying their bills to troubleshooting connectivity issues. Verizon has enlisted Google Gemini for Frontline support In its app, T-Mobile uses its T-Life app to stay up to date on weekly perks and even encourage potential customers to switch vector.
AT&T’s new app — called simply AT&T, albeit confusingly — combines mobile and home Internet features for what the company calls “converged” customers who subscribe to both. It also has a cleaner design and feels faster overall.
I tried out a beta version of the app before launch, and one of the first things I noticed compared to MyAT&T was the removal of a long-standing annoyance. Sometimes, when you search for information, the application displays it in the web browser within the interface. You have shown the appropriate content, but… feel As if I had been handed over to something else, something disjointed.
“Our data shows that if there is friction in (customers’) experiences, they decline,” said Andrew Solmsen, associate vice president of digital customer growth at AT&T. “So we worked hard on” the design and performance.
AI-powered convergent assistant
The new AT&T app includes the buttons and menus you’d expect to navigate to view your bill, explore other plans and services, and shop for phones and accessories. But Solmsen said the development teams realized that these structures don’t work for everyone, which is why a major new feature is a generative AI assistant called Andi.
“We’ve found in our testing that people find[these tasks]a little easier to do directly through conversation,” Solmsen said.
This also allows customers to change context without having to start over or move to a new section. If they’re checking if a World Day Pass is available, for example, and then move on to wanting to know what World Day Pass prices are, it’s a matter of asking a follow-up question in the same chat, he said.
“The focus here is to serve the customer in the best way the customer wants to be served,” said Jeff Dixon, associate vice president of digital product management and development at AT&T.
This feature was built using components from licensed LLMs such as Gemini Models and Google’s OpenAI. Customer data remains with AT&T and is not shared with outside companies. “All of our data has been isolated,” Dixon said. “There’s extensive red teaming… (and) a lot of rigorous work to make sure everything is safe.”
In my limited testing of the beta app, getting information from the AI assistant was hit or miss. When I asked Andy how long it had been since I last used data on my Apple Watch, he showed me the prices for a new watch. When I asked her to recommend a plan for my account, she suggested AT&T Unlimited Premium PL, which was discontinued last week in favor of the new Premium 2.0 plan.
I then asked him to compare Premium 2.0 to my current plan, but he couldn’t come up with it. So, in this interaction at least, customer information is not being pulled into the conversation. But when I asked her to compare the Unlimited Elite plan with the Premium 2.0 plan, she gave me bulleted lists of features and a numbered summary of their differences.
I thought my expectations might be too high, but I realized they weren’t really my expectations: Chatbots like this are meant to be conversational to give you an experience more like talking to a real person. If I walk into an AT&T store and talk to an employee, they can open my account and answer questions with that information on hand.
“It’s early enough to see how customers use it, how customers like it,” Solmsen said, adding that it still includes the option of going into a store to work with an AT&T representative or contacting support by phone.
AT&T’s new app has AI-based chat (left) and controls to pause devices or groups of devices (right).
Enhanced parental controls, detailed data and messaging
Another new feature in the app allows you to temporarily stop devices or groups of devices connected to your accounts. In Solmsen’s example, if parents wanted to ensure some time away from phones during dinner or a family activity, they could pause each device for 30 minutes, 2 hours, or 24 hours. This can be done individually or in a group that includes each child’s phone. While taking a phone timeout for family dinner is a benign scenario, there are others — including parental controls that temporarily turn off kids’ phones wherever they are — that can be overbearing.
If a family is a converged customer who has both mobile and home internet on the same account, they can also pause Wi-Fi access to devices using the same feature.
Groups can also be set up with downtime schedules, such as going offline during hours when kids (or even parents) should be sleeping.
Some other features stand out. The app displays more detailed usage statistics, such as the data used by each device in the account, calls and texts, and hotspot data.
“Even customers who use unlimited, unlimited wireless Internet are really curious about the data they’re using,” Solmsen said. “Being able to know that your child’s devices were using a significant amount of data at 4 a.m. is very valuable.”
AT&T has also cleaned up the messaging interface. Hopefully this means no more notifications will appear and then disappear into the ether if you ignore them before reading.
The app is available for download now, and will be rolled out gradually over the next few weeks to customers who have automatic app updates enabled on their iPhone or Android phones.