ARMONK, N.Y., Sept. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- With COVID-19
causing uncertainty about voting logistics and procedures across
the country, IBM (NYSE: IBM) has technology to help states use the
AI capabilities of Watson to
put this critical data and information directly into the hands of
voters.
With states facing a deluge of information requests related to
voting procedures, citizens may face wait times to receive answers
to their most frequently asked questions.
To help ease this burden and address citizens' voting-related
inquiries online or by phone, IBM is offering Watson Assistant on
the IBM public cloud to U.S. states at no charge for 60 days.
As part of this offering, IBM will assist with initial set up,
which typically can be done in a few days. The offering uses
advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) built by IBM Research
and available in IBM Watson Assistant for citizen-facing virtual
agents, and Watson Discovery for text analytics that, when
combined, quickly respond to voter questions and requests about the
election process. The tool can advise citizens on everything
from finding polling places and voting hours to procedures and
deadlines for requesting mail-in ballots, and more.
Language is a unique challenge for businesses because it is
always evolving and lives in many different forms. Organizations
need AI that can understand the language of their business.
NLP can parse language into its elemental pieces to
help organizations unearth insights, make more informed
decisions, and create conversational experiences.
"Early in the pandemic, we mobilized Watson and its natural language processing
technology to help organizations quickly deliver critical
information and services to citizens, customers, and employees,"
said Daniel Hernandez, General
Manager, Data and AI, IBM. "With success there and the upcoming
U.S. election, we are now mobilizing Watson to manage the flood of information
requests and questions from citizens regarding voting logistics and
resources."
In March, the state of Idaho
determined that there would be no in-person voting for its May
primary election due to COVID-19. The Idaho Secretary of State's Office turned to
IBM Watson Assistant to help communicate to its 900,000 registered
voters how to cast their ballots by mail through the existing
absentee voting system. Heading into the U.S. Presidential election
in November, Idaho will continue
to use Watson Assistant to field voter queries.
"In short turn, our office needed to communicate the
registration and absentee ballot procedures to Idaho voters, and we were bracing ourselves
for a wave of calls," said Idaho
Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad
Houck. "In just two weeks, two of our people got started
with Watson Assistant and trained it to provide important
information about how and when to vote. We're now exploring its
capabilities throughout the remainder of this election season and
beyond to help convey information about the other services and
functions we provide for the people of Idaho."
The Watson Assistant offering uses Watson Discovery to find and
surface currently available data about voting processes and
logistics from external sources, including federal, state and
county websites and local sources such as news reports and
documents on websites. The offer includes access to more than 25
pre-trained "intents" or queries specific to voting and election
logistics. "Intents" are purposes or goals that are expressed
in a citizen's input, such as answering a question. By recognizing
the intent expressed in a citizen's input, Watson Assistant can
choose the correct dialog flow for responding to it. The system is
focused specifically on assisting with the act of voting. It does
not provide insights or recommendations regarding individual
candidates or their positions on specific issues.
Watson Assistant uses advanced NLP capabilities to automate
responses to frequently asked questions about voting procedures
through the pre-trained intents, that come in via phone call or
text, such as "When is my absentee ballot due?", "How do I request
an absentee ballot?", "How do I update my voter registration
details?" and "When will my polling location be open?".
States can work with IBM to customize Watson Assistant on top of
the base model and intents to include tailored information,
expanded use cases or add additional questions that are specific to
their state or county, as well as integrate with back-end ERP
systems.
To date, IBM Watson Assistant has been deployed by businesses
and government agencies in more than 25 countries around the world
to respond to COVID-19 and reimagine the way work will get done in
this new operating environment.
Today's news builds on a series of announcements that
demonstrate how IBM is advancing Watson's ability to understand the language of
business so that companies can generate new insights - from
commercializing cutting-edge capabilities from Project Debater to
transforming the fan experience at the US Open to bringing more
diverse voices into the public square with 'That's Debatable'.
IBM is helping businesses and consumers take action in
six key areas to emerge smarter, more resilient and more agile
for years to come.
For more information about how businesses in any industry can
use Watson Assistant, visit:
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/watson-assistant/.
Media Contact
Hanna Smigala
IBM Media
Relations
smigala@us.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM