Virtual Municipality Assistant Gem

Municipality of Rotterdam

The virtual assistant Gem is a digital helper on Rotterdam websites for answering citizen and business questions. You can talk to Gem via the chat button on our websites.

Last change on 18th of July 2024, at 15:03 (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/53761720551735597

Responsible use

Goal and impact

Understand the resident as well as possible and help him to the right answer. Sometimes this can be a substantive or procedural answer, sometimes a referral or a transfer to a (live chat) employee.

The virtual assistant is only used to provide more assistance by providing nationally established answers to citizen and business questions or by referring people to an employee.

Considerations

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Human intervention

The answers that Gem can give are in a national library. Employees of the municipality of Rotterdam can change answers so that the answers match Rotterdam situations.

Risk management

Gem is a generic application. User feedback is monitored and maintenance agreements are in place. Rotterdam employees ensure that 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

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Technical design

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

The virtual assistant uses artificial intelligence, also known as artificial intelligence (AI). AI helps Gem to better understand the Rotterdammer and to provide the right information. Gem specifically uses supervised machine learning, which calculates which answer from the answer library provides the best answer to the question based on the question. As soon as 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, there is a greater chance that the answer that helped the most will be chosen.

Gem can therefore use this library to provide substantive answers to questions, but also refer you to an information page or have the conversation continued by an employee.

The answers that Gem can give are recorded nationally. This costs less management and radiates more unity between municipalities. If necessary, the municipality of Rotterdam can adjust answers so that they fit better with specific situations in Rotterdam.

External provider

Municipality of Tilburg

Link to code base

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