Is there a chatbot in your agency's future? -- GCN

As government services move online, chatbots may be able to help answer citizen questions. So far, actual government examples are still rare, but speakers at a recent event stressed that the potential use cases are real and widespread. At the DigitalGov University event, "Automatic for the People: AI, Machine Learning and Chatbots for Digital Customer Service in Government" at the General Services Administration headquarters June 28, panelists discussed how advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, including bots, can expand and improve digital customer service. As more people are using government services online -- and asking questions about those services via digital channels -- the number of daily online queries to some agencies have already hit hundreds per day. "What happens when it becomes thousands of questions a day?" Justin Herman, the lead for open government at GSA's Technology Transformation Service, asked.