BROOKFIELD, WI – Along with Accenture and two other solution providers, the Georgia Technology Authority (GTA) selected ThoughtFocus’s YANA as an AI chatbot solution provider for agencies and departments across the state.
As the COVID-19 crisis escalated in the spring of 2020, numerous Georgia state agencies and departments experienced significant spikes in call center volume. While Georgia established developing chatbots as an initiative before the pandemic, the need for thorough and regular communications with residents dramatically increased the project’s priority.
The four sites targeted for implementation in 2020 were Georgia.gov, the Department of Public Health, The Governor’s Office, and the Georgia Department of Labor. Given the time pressure, GTA’s Office of Digital Services Georgia (DSG) deployed Microsoft QnA Maker, an out-of-the-box FAQ bot. Although these chatbots were not customized, they provided a quick solution to help the state respond to the large volume of routine questions and handoff conversations to call center operators as needed.
Observing this success, the opportunity to activate more robust enterprise AI chatbots to serve the information needs of Georgia residents, create operational workflow efficiencies, and reduce the call volume requiring human intervention became apparent.
DSG sought partners to build enterprise-level AI chatbots that could rapidly be customized to each agency or department’s operations and communications needs. While some agencies require demanding and complex functionality, other agencies require a more simplistic solution. The state sought chatbot partners that could handle highly sophisticated workflows and information delivery demands and relatively simple execution for agencies with more straightforward information needs.
In addition to the ability to customize a chatbot solution for each department or agency, DSG aims to harness the power of AI and machine learning to build an increasingly intelligent common knowledge base for all state agencies.
“YANA is extremely proud to partner with the state of Georgia, helping agencies across the state better serve residents,” commented Divyatej Raghu, Vice President at ThoughtFocus. “While YANA has served many colleges, universities, financial services organizations and more with improved communications well before and during the pandemic, the simultaneous increase in communications and service demands, coupled with budget cuts allowed the value of YANA to become even more apparent in state and local government.”
As the YANA team works alongside Georgia agencies, ThoughtFocus will be seeking opportunities to provide the same value and efficiencies to other states and organizations.
“The opportunities are truly endless, and given that fast and accurate information delivery is so important while working within pressured budgets, we believe YANA has an important role to play,” commented Raghu.
About YANA
YANA is an innovative technology platform from ThoughtFocus. It is an AI-based conversational chatbot currently serving higher education institutions, government agencies, and call centers serving numerous markets within the private sector. YANA chatbots dramatically improve customer service and effectiveness of communications while creating operational efficiencies that help manage costs.
About ThoughtFocus
ThoughtFocus is a privately held company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We lead transformation in business with technology and insights to add value in four major sectors, aerospace and defense, education, finance, and manufacturing. We’re unlike the large consulting firms whose digital transformation business model is disjointed into separate advisory and execution firms that may not reflect the reality of the client’s needs. ThoughtFocus is a smaller company with an integrated approach, which has led to successful outcomes. Since its inception, the organization has grown rapidly and is now a mid-sized company, part of the Blackstone portfolio. The founders hold executive positions within the organization and are actively involved with clients and projects.
– Samantha Kandah, Sr. Director of Marketing, ThoughtFocus