AO’s new wireless network enables smarter, faster customer service and business operations to maintain competitive agility in a dynamic market.
AO, one of the UK’s most trusted electricals retailer, has implemented HPE Networking solutions to accelerate its business with informed decision-making and to transform the employee experience.
By modernising its legacy wireless access network with Mist™ AI-native networking platform, AO enhances user experiences, securely connects a diverse range of devices and streamlines IT operations across all of its 26 offices and logistics centers.
AO is known for delivering home appliances, consumer electronics and mobile phones to millions of customers. The new network empowers AO’s fast-paced, customer-first service culture by supporting 24/7 logistics operations, including voice-activated inventory picking, packing, shipping, delivery, installation and recycling. By leveraging AI-native Wi-Fi and switching within the Mist platform, AO is boosting operational efficiency, enhancing real-time visibility and improving the overall workplace experience.
Mark Weeks, UK & Ireland, sales director, at HPE Networking, explains the gains that have been made, commenting:
“AO exemplifies how forward-thinking enterprises are using AI-native networking to drive real business outcomes. By adopting a cloud-managed, AI-native networking architecture from HPE, AO has gained robust, secure connectivity that spans corporate offices and complex operational environments. The advanced Mist platform delivers actionable insights and intelligent automation, empowering AO to accelerate decision-making and sustain competitive agility in a dynamic market.”
Mist is an AI-native networking platform, purpose-built to run AI workloads and simplify self-driving operations. By using quality data, built on modern microservices architecture, Mist assures exceptional user and application experiences from client to cloud. Marvis, the AI engine within the Mist platform, supports AO’s fast-moving, growing business beyond Day 0 by continuously learning and adapting to network changes. The Mist platform delivers deep insights for faster, more accurate issue resolution, often before users notice, enhancing experiences while reducing operational costs.
Matthew Brooks, Network Team Lead at AO, comments:
“We’re a developer-centric organisation, and we saw the opportunity to use the HPE Juniper Networking platform to drive data-led decisions around internal user experiences, leading to amazing customer experiences. The ability to see exactly what devices are on the network and to leverage real-time device and occupancy analytics enables us to make smarter, faster business decisions, in IT and across our entire operations.”
AO has deployed HPE Juniper Wi-Fi at its head office, design hub, creative studio and several logistics sites with plans to extend coverage to all its logistics and recycling centers at pace.
Wi-Fi Assurance proactively optimizes the wireless to meet the service level expectations (SLEs) set by the IT team and provides one-click root-cause analysis and remediation to boost network experiences and performance.
The Marvis AI Assistant® enables proactive actions and self-driving network operations. Marvis’ natural language conversational interface makes interactions simple and seamless, from the service desk to the network engineering team. As it constantly ingests data and learns from network devices and applications, IT teams can resolve issues with increased accuracy. Marvis Client provides Wi-Fi insights from the end user point of view.
AO plans to use Indoor Location Services to optimise desk and meeting room utilisation. By leveraging location data, the team can identify usage patterns and address peak-time demand more effectively.
