Sumter County’s plunge into artificial intelligence (AI) means you may not be talking to a live person when you call.
County Administrator Bradley Arnold discussed the fledgling AI program with commissioners Tuesday night at a workshop meeting.
“It’s a continuous work in progress,” he said of the program, which began handling calls on Jan. 27.
Designed to support, not replace, staff interaction, the system answers incoming calls, routes requests to the appropriate department and sends followup text messages if needed. Callers easily can connect to a live staff member.
Arnold said the system began with a female bot responding to animal services inquiries. A male bot was added, but he said it is not yet up to the female’s standards.
He said the program can handle a large number of calls simultaneously, making it useful for high call volume such as during hurricane preparation.
It also reduces the amount of non-emergency and spam calls reaching fire station lines.
Through March, the system handled 11,000 calls and 64 percent did not require staff intervention.
Callers have encountered some issues and most have been corrected.
Looping was a problem for some callers along with GIS coding and voice mail routing issues.
Commissioner Andrew Bilardello said he could not connect to veteran services even after saying it several times and spelling it out.
“That’s not the way to treat veterans,” he said.