Meet ChatIT, CBA’s AI-powered IT support chatbot built with Azure services – Cloud – Software

Commonwealth Bank has highlighted a generative AI-powered IT support chatbot that surfaced last week, revealing it is built with Azure services and accessible via Teams.

The chatbot, called ChatIT, was highlighted in the bank’s annual report (pdf) as a new AI-powered capability introduced in FY24.

“We launched ChatIT, our generative AI-powered IT support chatbot to help our employees find quick solutions to technology issues,” the bank wrote.

“With an average response time of 14 seconds, more than 10,000 employees have interacted with ChatIT and rated the experience positively, allowing them to focus on more meaningful work faster and more easily.”

Mark Vudrag, Executive Managing Director of Global Technology Services, said iTnews that ChatIT was launched in May and is accessible to every employee via Microsoft Teams.

“In three months, more than 13,000 employees have interacted with ChatIT to find personalized answers tailored to their individual needs, for “how to” questions, to check the status of their tickets and to track major incidents,” Vudrag said.

ChatIT is also “designed to help employees find quick solutions to common technology issues such as password resets and information-related queries,” he said.

“She has redefined how CBA supports its employees by simplifying routine IT troubleshooting and streamlining support, while adhering to strict security protocols, ensuring sensitive information is handled appropriately.”

On the backend, ChatIT uses Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, as well as Azure AI Search and an Azure-based natural language processing service.

To produce accurate responses, ChatIT relies on the bank’s internal IT knowledge base, maintained in ServiceNow.

Vudrag highlighted the future integration of more internal knowledge sources and an expansion of ChatIT’s capabilities.

“In the future, we plan to add exciting enhancements to ChatIT to ensure it continues to meet the needs of our employees,” he said.

“This includes simplifying the troubleshooting process by allowing employees to submit screenshots of an error message without having to translate it into words, providing the ability to forward it to a human, and enabling better access to information sources such as SharePoint, Jira, and Confluence.”

Vudrag added that ChatIT is an example of how the bank is using technology “to create user-friendly solutions that meet the evolving needs of a modern workforce.”