Geospatial Data and Voice Enabled Artificial Intelligence

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

The Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Technology Services (DTS) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) team developed a voice-enabled, virtual, artificial intelligence assistant (using the Amazon Alexa device) which provides the County’s annual fall leaf collection date(s) for the user’s address. Once the Alexa user initiates a voice command (for example, by asking Alexa “When is my leaf collection,?”) the Alexa device runs a query using a County developed web service, using the street address registered to the user’s Amazon Alexa account (note: alternatively, a user may also specify an address rather than assume the use of the default address). The web service processes the query, and triggers Alexa to respond to the user’s question with the designated leaf collection date(s) and time(s) for the specified address. A demo of “Alexa asks Montgomery County when is my leaf collection?” can be viewed on-line at https://youtu.be/vi8JPt_GSG0. This is the County’s first-ever implementation of such artificial intelligence / digital assistant technology. As such, the County envisions supplementing existing service delivery channels (i.e. web, mobile, 311) with this emerging technology to improve the provisioning and accessibility of County services and information for County residents and constituents. Furthermore, over time, DTS-GIS plans to expand the use of the artificial intelligence technology to “voice enable” other County services, such as those related to Public Safety, Transportation, Procurement, Elections and others, and to use other hardware devices in addition to the Amazon Alexa.