Queensland Treasury rolls out virtual assistant

Hot on the heels of the national Department of Human Services’ new digital assistant launch this week, Queensland Government’s Treasury has claiming a state-first with its new conversational virtual assistant.

The Office State Revenue (OSR), which sits as part of Queensland Treasury, has rolled out virtual assistant, ‘Sam’, across all of its revenue streams. The tool is based on Nuance’s natural language processing and AI-based resolution solution and provides a conversational interface on the Business Queensland and QLD Online websites, allowing clients to ask general questions about services.

The department says Sam provides more than 300 tailored responses and thousands of variations to questions about payroll tax, duties and grants, land tax and mining and petroleum royalties. The tool also directs site visitors to relevant information across all OSR pages.

The OSR first launched Sam as a pilot in February, using the tool to give clients answers to simple tax questions. To date, it said Sam has logged more than 5000 client interactions, with 71 per cent of enquiries resolved within the first contact.

“Sam saves taxpayers time by delivering information in a simple, conversational way and reduces the need for them to search for information on our Web pages,” OSR deputy commissions, Simon McKee, said. “Sam marks a further step in our commitment to meet or exceed our taxpayers’ expectations.”

Nuance Enterprise A/N managing director, Robert Schwarz, saw conversational AI transforming the way consumers engage with public sector as well as corporate brands.

“This provides endless opportunities for government to provide best-practice digital customer experiences,” he commented. “More than ever, Australian are expecting seamless digital client experiences from the private and public sector alike.”

Nuance’s other public sector customers include the Australian Tax Office and IP Australia.

More brands using digital assistants:

• UBank’s AI vision expands with rollout of RoboBrain
• How a chatbot is helping the AFL win more fans
• Aussie AI-powered virtual assistant commences trials with Liberty Mutual, Credit Union Australia
• How Swedbank leverages virtual assistants to boost customer satisfaction and retention
• NAB launches MLC virtual assistant to help consumers with super

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