Service reports by voice: AI interviews technicians after the job

After finishing a job, a TK Elevator technician used to make notes about the work, usually in his car. He works in Düsseldorf and has been servicing lifts for twelve years. He knows how awkward that can be. Now, after the job, a voice assistant asks him questions and captures his answers. He describes what he did in his own words.

The story published by Microsoft on 22 October 2026 shows how the company has brought AI into this technician’s work. At the end of a job, he uses it to talk through what he would otherwise have to write down.

If you run a maintenance business, this part is worth a closer look. You need service reports to give a colleague enough information to understand what happened with the equipment. The way you collect that information can make this easier, or leave out the very details they need.

How the interview works after a job

The TK Elevator technician has support even before he enters the building. An app on his phone or tablet gives him information about the lift he is about to work on. He knows which tools to bring and can consult digital manuals or the lift’s service history.

Before entering the building, he receives a briefing about the lift. During the job, he still assesses the situation and decides how to proceed.

Once he has finished, another assistant asks him questions by voice about the work he has done. The technician answers in his own words, without writing or typing. If an answer needs more explanation, the assistant asks for further details.

To understand how this works, imagine explaining a job to a colleague who was not there. You describe what you found and what you did. If something is unclear, your colleague asks you to explain it. The voice interview follows the same principle: a follow-up question lets you explain further.

The TK Elevator technician also describes his relationship with the tool: on site, he is still in charge, while AI is a companion that offers advice. His experience continues to guide the work.

What the next technician needs to know

The technician explains why this way of gathering information interests him. The company has good documentation, but much of his colleagues’ knowledge stays in their heads. The app lets him share what he knows with others.

The distinction matters in practice. A document can describe a piece of equipment, while an account from someone who has worked on it helps explain what happened during a service visit. For whoever returns next, understanding a colleague’s reasoning can be just as useful as knowing what they did.

Imagine one of your technicians returning to equipment previously serviced by a colleague. The service report is too brief to reconstruct the earlier work. They may need to call that colleague, ask for an explanation and get information the colleague remembers but did not write down.

In that situation, the work has to be explained a second time. Whoever organises the service work also has to find a time when the two technicians can talk.

The voice interview offers a way to capture that account at the end of the job. Part of its value lies in the information it makes available to whoever uses the report later. A longer description alone does little good if your colleague still has the same questions.

What a small maintenance business can take from this

TK Elevator has 25,000 service technicians worldwide. The solution described rests on a digital foundation built over the past decade, with connected lifts and escalators and data collected over time. That groundwork helps explain how the app can support the technician even before the job begins.

If you have five to thirty technicians, it helps to consider two activities separately: making equipment histories available and capturing a technician’s account by voice. You need to assess each in light of the information and tools your business already has.

After analysing a completed month of work, you could consider a focused first use: starting with the technician’s spoken account to prepare a draft service report for review. This gives you a starting point centred on one specific part of the work.

The results also need to be viewed in the context of this particular case. The article follows one technician in Germany and gives no figures for time saved or service report quality. It does not say how many technicians use the app or in which countries.

The case therefore shows how the solution works in practice. To understand how useful it could be in your business, you need to try it in your team’s day-to-day work and see what happens.

Which service reports to start with

Your first step can be simple: take one completed month of work, including its service reports, invoice line items and service contracts, and check where completed jobs, contract coverage and invoices do not line up. After this analysis, if a voice trial addresses the step you need to improve, read a few of those reports with the technicians who did the work. Ask each technician to talk you through the job, then compare what they say with what was written down.

This comparison helps you spot the information that gets lost. You may find that the report clearly describes what was done but leaves the reason for that choice unclear. Or the reader may still need to ask for an explanation. These are things to check with your team before deciding which questions the assistant should ask.

Next, consider who will use that information. The colleague returning to the equipment needs to understand the previous work. Whoever plans the service schedule needs to know whether the visit has identified any work that needs scheduling. The questions must serve a clear purpose for both the person answering and the person reading the report.

You can then choose one type of job to start with. Keeping the scope narrow helps you see whether the questions fit the way your technicians think and whether their answers can be turned into a clear draft.

During the trial, pay attention to the final review too. Can the person reading the draft understand what happened during the job? Do they still need to ask for explanations? Are the corrections about wording, or is information about the work missing?

These checks help you decide how to proceed. If the same detail keeps going missing, you can revise the question intended to bring it out. If a question causes confusion, rewrite it using words familiar to your team. Assess the time spent giving the account and reviewing the draft alongside the quality of the information collected.

Who reviews the draft and what they check

In the approach we propose, a person reviews and approves the draft service report. This step needs a clear place in your daily work: decide who is responsible and when they do it.

A draft can contain errors or unclear passages. The review checks that it describes the job accurately and makes clear what has been done and what, if anything, remains to be done. If information is missing, you need to get it from the technician.

That is why you need to assess the whole process, from the initial account to the approved document. If the draft repeatedly needs further explanation, you need to improve how you gather the information. Simply producing a written account does not make it useful.

The TK Elevator technician’s role is relevant here too: he knows what work was done and guides decisions about the equipment. In the approach we propose for service reports by voice, human review checks that the document reflects what actually happened during the job.

How we can work on this together

At Gitogi, we help Italian maintenance businesses with digitalisation and AI. For service reports, we can start with the technician’s spoken account and prepare a draft for a person to review and approve.

To explore this possibility in your business, start with your team’s work: how they describe a job and what the people reading the report need to know. You can find our AI integration page here: https://www.gitogi.com/en/servizi/integrazione-ai/

We are developing sbrigo.io, a service for maintenance businesses that will let technicians describe their jobs by voice. It is a work in progress and part of our commitment to technical service businesses. You can read more about our work in this sector here: https://www.gitogi.com/en/field-service/

If your team still writes service reports in the car, or needs phone calls to clarify what was done, write to us and tell us how you work. We start with one month of your completed jobs (service reports, invoices and service contracts) and show you where jobs, contracts and invoices don't line up. We then work with you to measure the step that costs you the most and, before building anything, show you the numbers.