CivTech Week #6: Decision day!

Making tough decisions and planting 4000 trees

We offered to plant a hundred trees to any Scot who volunteered to test the speech AI system. We had 40 volunteers respond to this offer, so we will be planting 4000 trees. A huge thank you to all!

After a month of user testing our two shortlisted voice AI systems, we finally made the big decision. The result? We are pleased to announce that the ‘winner’ of the speech AI platform to be piloted by the Citizens Advice Scotland helpline is… PolyAI!

It was a tough decision, as the other speech AI system was also highly competent. The deciding factor is that PolyAI offered a slightly smoother, more human-like experience. Sometimes the other system could go wrong in ways that felt frustrating, and perhaps even slightly reminiscent of Burnistoun’s voice recognition AI lift.

In making this decision, our foremost consideration was that CAS are offering services to callers who may be in distress, facing housing, financial or other crisis. The last thing we want to do is present them with a frustrating phone system. There’s a risk it might send them ‘over the edge’, as one CAS staff member put it in user testing. We found the PolyAI system was the most natural. Even when it got it wrong, it got it wrong in human-like ways.

We now look forward to establishing a working relationship with PolyAI. We are confident that we are on track to deliver a great system for Citizens Advice Scotland helpline staff and its callers. We can’t wait until demo day in Edinburgh next February, where we’ll be able to show it to the world.