In this 24/7 world, it’s hard to imagine anyone not getting what they need when they need it. Arizona Technology Council members are no different, especially when many work at businesses where customers expect to be served around the clock.
But what happens when a member traveling on the other side of the world needs to know details about an upcoming Council event when it’s the middle of the night back in Arizona?
No worries. “Ada” is the Council’s newest “employee,” ready to answer that question and many more since she is always on duty.
Ada actually is a chat assistant available to assist everyone — member or not — with Council-related questions and information related to offerings such as membership, upcoming events and even public policy.
It’s common for Council staff to respond to a mountain of email from members and the broader technology community across Arizona with questions about the organization and its activities. So, when President and CEO Steven G. Zylstra introduced the opportunity to develop an AI chatbot to help, his team gave a collective thumbs up since they knew it would offer a quick way to address frequently asked questions, helping staff better serve members and prospects.
But what to call it? Chief of Staff Diana White suggested “Ada” in honor of Ada Lovelace, widely known as the first computer programmer. Lovelace was an English mathematician who created a program for the prototype of an early digital computer created by Charles Babbage.
To bring Ada to life, the Council worked with the team at SkillBuilder (https://skillbuilder.io) to create and train her. Based on years of applied research at Carnegie Mellon University and decades of tactical sales and product experience, SkillBuilder.io is purpose-built to empower founders and sales and product leaders to tap their teams’ knowledge to answer their most frequently asked questions, align teams for growth and accelerate sales cycles.
Training a chatbot is a large task in itself but the effort was made more palatable in this case, thanks to the SkillBuilder team, says Leslie Marquez, the Council’s director of marketing and communications. “The sheer amount of information we needed to input into Ada was significant, but we knew that the more information we provided her, the better she’d be able to work for us and help our members,” she says.
In all, more than 400 Council-related questions and answers were created to launch Ada “and that number keeps growing as we continue to add new information to her database,” Marquez says. To help with fine-tuning, the platform is able to track questions and review responses, so issues can be corrected and insight into the most frequently asked questions can be gained.
For next steps, the Council will use Ada throughout the year to develop event-specific FAQs to help attendees know what to expect. In addition, plans call for developing an internal version of the chatbot to assist with staff processes, new employee onboarding and more.
“So far, Ada has been performing exceptionally well and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive,” Marquez says. “We’ve really just scratched the surface of how Ada can help our members, prospects and staff.”
To chat with Ada, click the orange chat icon on the Council’s website.
