Virtual municipality assistant Gem

Municipality of Rotterdam

The virtual assistant Gem is a digital help on Rotterdam websites to answer civic and business questions. Via the chat button on our websites, you can talk to Gem.

Last change on 15th of December 2025, at 14:52 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Other algorithms
• Impact assessment: Field not filled in.
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Organisation and business operations

Begin date

12-2021

Contact information

[e-mail]

Link to publication website

https://commonground.nl/groups/view/978adf62-97f2-4955-87cc-7fee0cd238e0/team-virtuele-assistent-gem?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=overview.

Link to source registration

https://algoritmeregister.rotterdam.nl/p/Onzealgoritmes/53761720551991476

Responsible use

Goal and impact

Understanding the resident as well as possible and helping them get the right answer. This may sometimes be a substantive or procedural answer, sometimes a referral or transfer to a (livechat) employee.

The virtual assistant is only deployed to provide more help by giving nationally determined answers to citizen and business questions or referral to an employee.

Considerations

Field not filled in.

Human intervention

The answers Gem can provide are in a national library. Employees of the Rotterdam municipality can change answers to fit Rotterdam situations.

Risk management

Gem is a generic application. User feedback is monitored and maintenance agreements are in place. Rotterdam staff make sure the answers fit the situation in Rotterdam.

Elaboration on impact assessments

No personal data is processed and this is a low-risk algorithm application.

Operations

Data

Field not filled in.

Technical design

The municipality of Rotterdam offers digital help to residents and entrepreneurs with a question. This digital help is called 'virtual assistant Gem'. Via the chat button on our websites, you can talk to Gem.

The virtual assistant uses artificial intelligence, also known as artificial intelligence (AI). AI helps Gem to better understand the Rotterdam resident and provide the right information. Specifically, Gem uses supervised machine learning, which calculates, based on the question, which answer from the answer library provides the best answer to the question. Once a question cannot be answered sufficiently well, the conversation is continued by an employee. At the end of the conversation, the user can indicate whether the answer helped. The next time a person asks a similar question, the answer that helped the most is more likely to be chosen.

Gem can thus answer questions based on this library in terms of content, as well as refer to an information page or have a staff member continue the conversation.

The answers that Gem can provide are recorded nationwide. This costs less management and radiates more unity between municipalities. If necessary, the municipality of Rotterdam can adjust answers to better suit specific situations in Rotterdam.

External provider

Municipality of Tilburg

Link to code base

https://gitlab.com/virtuele-gemeente-assistent/gem