The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) has deployed an AI-powered virtual assistant to help employees resolve technology issues. BART operates 131 miles of rapid transit lines connecting San Francisco with other bay area communities.
Impact
The virtual assistant is integrated with Microsoft Teams and includes a knowledge base to help employees answer IT questions and resolve common hardware and software issues themselves. The automated service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Employees can also use the service to order BART-issued laptops, cell phones and other equipment.
BART says the virtual assistant has reduced the number of IT tickets submitted by employees by 30% since it was launched.
Advice
BART recommends these steps for understanding whether an AI virtual assistant can be used effectively:
- Understand the profiles of potential users
- Understand current deficiencies in the service area
- Perform pattern recognition on IT ticket types and identify potential issues to include in the knowledge base
- Understand the volume of ticket types, the average time it takes to reach resolution and how many require manual intervention
