OSR rolls out Nuance virtual assistant: 'Sam'

A virtual assistant named Sam has been rolled out across the Queensland Office of State Revenue (OSR).

The virtual assistant is powered by Nuance, using AI technology.

Sitting on Business Queensland and Qld Online websites, Sam provides a conversational interface that allows clients to ask general questions about OSR’s services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Using Nuance’s natural language understanding (NLU), conversational dialogue and advanced resolution techniques, Sam provides more than 300 tailored responses, with thousands of variations to commonly asked questions across payroll tax, duties and grants, land tax and mining and petroleum royalties. Sam can also direct taxpayers to relevant information on OSR’s web pages.

“With Sam, we have provided another channel for our taxpayers to easily access information, 24/7,” said OSR Deputy Commissioner Simon McKee.

“Sam saves taxpayers time by delivering information in a simple, conversational way and reduces the need for them to search for information on our web pages. Sam marks a further step in our commitment to meet or exceed our taxpayers’ expectations.”

The Managing Director for Nuance Enterprise, Australia and New Zealand, Robert Schwarz, said, “Conversational AI has completely transformed the way consumers engage, providing endless opportunities for government to provide best-practice digital customer experiences. More than ever, Australians are expecting seamless digital client experiences from the private and public sector alike.

“Nuance’s AI systems listen, learn and deliver progressively better outcomes by leveraging big data and human input to emulate live agents. Through this learning loop, we can deliver enterprise-grade solutions, empowering organisations, including government, to provide optimal experiences for Australians. Nuance Nina ensures consistent and intelligent automated conversations with human-like dialogue.”

OSR launched Sam in February 2018 to help OSR’s clients gain answers to simple tax questions 24/7. Since then, Sam has logged more than 5000 client interactions — with over 71% of enquiries being resolved at the first contact.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Guido Vrola

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