154 FEATURE Gamle Oslo isn’t the only city authority to have recently deployed new technologies to improve how it delivers services to the public. “The Covid-19 pandemic forced governmentled organisations to accelerate their adoption of technologies such as AI and the cloud to ensure they could continue delivering vital public services during mandatory lockdowns,” says Eric Basha, director of business strategy for worldwide government at Microsoft. “Although the restrictions on in-person contact lifted long ago, these virtual services have remained popular and people now use them for everything from booking medical appointments to applying for driving licences, building permits and financial aid, or reporting issues such as crimes, potholes and water leaks.” Putting the power in citizens’ hands One of the primary ways government-led organisations are using generative AI is within self-service tools that enable members of the public to rapidly access services and information. The City of Burlington in Ontario, Canada, for example, has developed an AI-based assistant named CoBy in collaboration with Microsoft partner MNP Digital. Created using Microsoft Copilot Studio, CoBy is available 24/7 and provides residents with real-time responses to frequently asked questions, as well as information about public services. Derby City Council in the UK has also introduced two chatbots built on Azure OpenAI with the help of Microsoft partner ICS.AI. The council hoped the chatbots would automatically handle 20 per cent of its phone conversations when they launched in 2023, but resident uptake has surpassed expectations. Now, over 43 per cent of conversations are automated and the chatbots have managed over 1.1 million telephone and web queries. Chatbots are becoming increasingly effective – and popular – now that they run on generative AI, according to Basha. “In the past, chatbots were programmed to respond to frequently asked questions but were easily confused if someone communicated in a different language or didn’t use specific phrasing. Now they run on generative AI, they can understand natural language queries and conduct human-like conversations, making them more intuitive and helpful. Consequently, members of the public are more inclined to use them.” Just as they are doing with chatbots, government-led organisations are leveraging generative AI’s natural language processing abilities to enhance interactive voice response (IVR) systems they use to automate operations in their contact centres. When a member of the public calls the contact centre, the AI-powered IVR system can understand everyday language, perform real-time speech translation and quickly find the information the caller needs. In addition, AI enables sentiment analysis to sense when a caller is upset or frustrated and immediately escalate it to a live agent who has the skills, knowledge and availability to resolve the caller’s issue. It does this by using intelligent routing technologies. “AI can also automate costly and tedious tasks such as transcription, conversation summaries of audio files, and more,” says Basha. “The combination of automating mundane tasks and enabling the public to self-serve is dramatically reducing the workload of contact centre staff and enabling them to focus on resolving more complex service requests. This all leads to VisitMadridGPT provides tourists with 24/7 access to accurate and real-time information about the city of Madrid Photo: Madrid Destino “ Microsoft is committed to decreasing the digital divide, so all our software has builtin accessibility features”
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