ICS AI Digital Assistant helps Cheshire West and Chester Council handle a 500% increase in Coronavirus questions from the public

A COVID-19 AI Digital Assistant is now available to help public sector organisations provide employees or the public with detailed national and local COVID-19 information as well as having the ability to quickly create simple processes. Below is an example of how this helped Cheshire West and Chester Council:

On 24^th March 2020 Cheshire West and Chester Council saw a 500% increase in requests to their Chatbot Digital Assistant AIDA for information. Ben Cummins, Managing Director of Qwest who runs the council’s contact centre, said-

“Fortunately we had a 24/7 AI Digital Assistant on the council’s website, so when our agent capacity was suddenly redirected to deal with a huge increase in citizens’ demand relating to Coronavirus, we were able to switch to using our AI Digital Assistant to help hundreds of our residents. When we looked at the detailed logs from the Assistant, we saw over 300 different questions related to Coronavirus, so it was clear we needed a specific Coronavirus “skill” and I am pleased to announce that the skill has been added to our existing AI Digital Assistant and is live on our website from today. We expect this to further improve the service we are able to provide at this difficult time.”

Martin Neale, CEO of ICS AI, supplier of Qwest’s AI Digital Assistant AIDA, said-

“Our team here at ICS AI decided we wanted to build a specific Coronavirus skill to add to our AI Digital Assistant in order to help customers get through the emergency phase of their Coronavirus mitigation plans. For obvious reasons, it had to be available quickly. Fortunately, we were able to use the thousands of Coronavirus questions from Chester’s chatbot to both populate and train the Assistant, providing one of the most comprehensive resources in the country. The Coronavirus skill we have developed is quite sophisticated. It has a priority store of hundreds of Coronavirus voice-ready answers and can fall back on multiple trusted and curated Coronavirus knowledge sources such as the council’s own website, the World Health Organisation, NHS 111, and Public Health England. Clients can also optionally create and manage their own dedicated local Coronavirus knowledge store. I am very proud of what our team and their counterparts at Qwest have achieved here, I think it will make a difference.”

Coronavirus is having a huge impact on public sector organisations who are struggling to provide services amid staff absences from illness, family self-isolation and lockdown. In addition, there is near constant change as the government changes guidance and tactics in line with the evolving situation. The new COVID-19 Assistant provides public sector organisations with a mechanism for employees or the public to self-serve information and actions.

The COVID-19 Assistant is available now to all organisations, it can be deployed very quickly and does not require any customer IT resources beyond adding it to their website. The COVID-19 Assistant is part of a range of AI-based Digital Assistants from ICS AI developed to help public sector organisations.

ICS AI are a 2-year-old AI Startup and are fast becoming one the UK’s leading suppliers of Artificial Intelligence technology to the public sector. ICS AI are a Microsoft Gold Partner and the only UK Headquartered Microsoft AI Inner Circle Partner. ICS AI are the creators of the world’s first public sector focused Ethical AI Transformation platform which is deployed across an increasing number of public sector organisations. Their clients include OFCOM ICO, Health Education England, Southampton City Council, the Crown Prosecution Service, Nottingham Trent University and Cheshire West and Chester Council.

See the AI Assistant live: https://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/home.aspx

ICS.AI website: www.ICS.AI

ICS Coronavirus Mitigation: https://www.ics.ai/employee-coronavirus-mitigation

For more information, please contact Martin Neale, CEO at +44 7768877088 or Martin.Neale@ICS.AI

ICS.AI Ltd

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