With the advancements in Natural Language Processing, man-and-machine conversations have become far enriched than the basic Q&A with a chatbot. Intelligent Virtual Assistants understand intent, preferences and are built to learn with every conversation. NLP, AI and ML work in unison to give the impression of natural interaction as one would have with a human. One of the best examples of tech democratisation, automated helpdesks today use a lot of this technology to augment human productivity. The India government is putting this technology to good use for the benefit of its citizens. Here’s a round up of some of our best stories covering the applications of AI-chatbots by public entities.

• MyGov Corona Helpdesk: India deployed the world’s largest WhatsApp chatbot – MyGov Corona Helpdesk – in record time of five days to aid our fight against the pandemic by disseminating timely and right information. It is a 24/7 helpdesk developed by Haptik that has been handling millions of diverse queries in both English and Hindi. Since its launch in March 2020, the helpdesk has successfully catered to over 25 million users with over 36 million queries.

Case Study: India's AI-enabled COVID-19 helpdesk to suppress misinformation

Article: How Haptik’s chatbot is fighting COVID-19 misinformation

Article: From information to emotions and everything in between

• MyGov Saathi: As India confronted the challenge of the pandemic, it also sought to curb the so-called infodemic surrounding Covid-19. With the aim to equip India’s 1.3 billion citizens with a responsible AI tool that provides accurate and useful information on the virus, Accenture and Microsoft developed an AI-powered virtual agent in days. Referred to as MyGov Saathi (meaning “companion” in Hindi), the chatbot was embedded on the ‘self4society’ microsite of MyGov. It has been tuned to provide customised answers for queries relevant to farmers, migrants, senior citizens, frontline workers and other citizens alike so they all adopt behaviours that minimise transmission and exposure to the coronavirus. MyGov Saathi can handle up to 300,000 users per day and 20,000 concurrent users per minute.

Case Study: Combatting Covid-19 infodemic with AI virtual assistant

Article: Whatabout the bot – Ya whatabout it?

• Ask VAHEI: As part of the Digital India programme and for ease of doing business, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has launched an AI-powered chatbot to cater to queries of its users. The VAHEI (Virtual Assistant to Help Exporters and Importers) chatbot can help with queries related to Foreign Trade Policy of India and DGFT. Using the VAHEI bot, exporters/importers/public users can also check status of various applications and authorisations. Users can see new notifications, trade notice, public notice & circulars on chatbot. The chatbot gives text responses for a simple query or provides the relevant URLs. If no direct response is found, it finds references in Foreign trade policy/ Handbook of procedure and opens related section in PDF. After first query, VAHEI intelligently understands context and gives auto-suggestions to the user. 

Case Study: AI chatbot is facilitating India's foreign trade

Article: Chatbots are passe

DETaiLED: How to build a Chatbot?

• Ask DISHA: Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) became the first ever public sector enterprise to deploy an AI-powered chatbot on its portal in October 2018. AskDISHA (Digital Interaction to Seek Help Anytime), a chatbot powered by CoRover and Microsoft Azure, answers queries pertaining to various services offered by IRCTC. It can answer user queries on ticket reservation, refund status, PNR search, cancellations, probability of ticket confirmation, as well as other travel and tourism offerings of the Indian Railways subsidiary. AskDISHA has also received the Asia Leadership Award for Innovation Using Technology 2019 for being the first chatbot for any government organization in India.

Article: On the right track:AI and NLP are enhancing the railways experience

Article: COVID19: Official updates, verified by a doctor, delivered using AI

• PAi: National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched an AI based virtual assistant – PAi ­– to improve digital financial inclusion in India. The chatbot works round the clock for assisting users with accurate information on NPCI products like FASTag, RuPay, UPI, AePS. Developed by Bengaluru based startup CoRover, PAi is intended to help increase the adoption of digital payments among Indian citizens.

News: NPCI launches AI based Chatbot PAi

#WebinarWindUp: INDIAai360 with Ankush Sabharwal, Cofounder & CEO, CoRover

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