The social services department (OCMW) in the Brussels municipality of Sint-Agatha-Berchem has become the first in Belgium to use an AI chatbot on its website. The chatbot can answer questions from the public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Sint-Agatha-Berchem becomes 1st social service department in Belgium with its own chatbot
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The Brussels regional agency that manages the digitalisation of local and regional public services in the capital paradigm.brussels say that the addition of the chatbot to the website is not only a first for a social service department in a Belgian municipality, but it illustrates “a wider ambition to structure, share and secure digital innovation to the benefit of all local authorities in Brussels”.
Although in its press release paradigm.brussels claims that the chatbot adapts to the language of the user, an attempt to ask it a question in Portugees and English was met with a reply (in Dutch) that we should ask the question in either Dutch or French, the two official languages of the Brussels Capital Region.
The Chatbot is also connected to regional information and service platforms such as MyPermit, IRISbox en FixMyStreet.
Other local authorities to follow
Sint-Agatha-Berchem is the 1st local authority in Brussels to deploy the services of a chatbot. Other local authorities can add the chatbot to their websites and the application may also be offered to other Brussels authorities in the future.
Paradigm.brussels supports municipalities in rolling out chatbots and also guarantees an analysis of the applications they already in use. “These tools strengthen the ability of local authorities to respond efficiently to citizens' expectations by ensuring continuous access to information” paradigm.brussels concludes.