Continued operation and development of the chatsbot Sophia for the administration portal

LOT-0000
Continued operation and development of the chatbot Sophia.
The Minister for Digital Strategy and Development in the area of the Hessian State Chancellery is responsible, among other things, for the Hessian administrative portal. To make the management portal even more user-friendly, the chatbot Sophia went live as a pilot project in June 2022. The pilot is successfully in action. It is therefore now to be put out to tender again. Furthermore, it is planned to make the chatbot available to all municipalities and districts (max. 450 websites) in a simple basic version.
Sophia improves the findability of administrative services in the Verwaltungsportal Hessen (VWP). It ensures a user-friendly journey through the VWP. Sophia finds the right answers not only to specific questions, but also to the description of administrative services.
Sophia pulls her data directly from the Hessen-Finder content management system. Municipalities, among others, also enter their digital administrative services and online services in this content management system. Care is organised in a decentralised manner. In order to improve care, the AG offers all municipalities a free basic version.
Target group 1: Citizens and businesses
Objective 1: Increase the attractiveness of the VWP
Target group 2: Municipalities in Hesse
Objective 2: Use of Sophia on municipal websites
Sophia has been online since June 2022 and has learned a lot since then. The current operator provides the training content that is already available. The file format is CSV or JSON.
The Contractor shall ensure that the chatbot can go live from 01.06.2024.
Sophia is already in use on four websites. With this call for tenders, the radius will be increased - Sophia will be used on municipal websites, if desired by the municipalities. In total, there are around 450 websites in Hesse. In addition, there is the HessenApp, where Sophia is also to be connected.
Basic version: Sophia pulls her data directly from the content management system Hessen-Finder, which is maintained decentrally. The AG offers municipalities a basic version of Sophia free of charge. This basic version is a mirrored version of the Sophia used in the VWP.
Premium version: If the municipalities also want to enter municipality-specific information, such as regional festivals, into the chatbot on their websites or if they want to configure the chatbot in such a way that primarily the municipal data is communicated via the chatbot, it is a premium version. The municipalities pay for this version independently and directly to the contractor.
The chatbot is capable of applying artificial intelligence and, in the future, generative artificial intelligence. This is done within the framework of the EU regulations and the corresponding requirements of the federal government and the state of Hesse. These have not yet been adopted or decided at the time of publication. The Contractor therefore regularly informs himself about the current status of the legal requirements and coordinates with the Client.
The Contractor is awarded the contract for a period of four years. During this period of the order, the Contractor is obliged to update the chatbot accordingly to the then current/latest technical state-of-the-art.
The chatbot is cooperative, goal-oriented, and provides quick answers. It is turn-based, i.e. it gives the right answer at the right time and asks questions in order to be able to give the user a more concrete answer. The flow of the conversation is manageable and is divided into individual message blocks, which are displayed with a two-second delay (one-breath rule). The chatbot is friendly, honest, politically correct and knows different formulations. He speaks in the first person, in the active and in the present. The chatbot can also talk about small talk topics.
Further details can be found in the service description.