GEA has recently launched a custom AI chatbot throughout the company. GEA BetterBot AI, which is based on Open AI’s widely known ChatGPT application through Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, was developed in-house by GEA and trained on current GEA data. It enables employees to retrieve publicly available information relating to GEA that is relevant to them in a matter of seconds. The proprietary tool is securely operated in a private cloud environment in Microsoft’s data centers, so that no confidential data or entries are leaked.
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GEA’s Chief Information Officer, Christian Niederhagemann, states – “In the space of just a few months, we developed an internal GEA chatbot, which has the potential to enhance our work through productivity and efficiency gains as well as time savings. This puts us among the pioneers in our industry, helping to shape digital progress.”
An interdisciplinary team is responsible for developing GEA’s in-house AI tool. Employees are also involved in the AI journey from an early stage. The alpha version has already been tested by 500 employees worldwide, with their feedback now factored into the tool’s ongoing refinement. Another roughly 1,200 employees have signed up for the beta test phase, which is already underway. This will help us customize the tool even more closely in line with GEA’s needs and requirements.
“Using GEA BetterBot AI opens up significant possibilities for working more efficiently,” adds Christian Niederhagemann. “The chatbot can, for instance, be used by employees to provide swifter responses to customer service inquiries, receive support with job advertisements and request market intelligence data, or for social media and marketing activities.”
“With generative AI solutions, companies can work more efficiently and with greater satisfaction”, states Florian Deter, Managing Director, Microsoft Germany & General Manager Enterprise Commercial. “We enable companies like GEA to use artificial intelligence to help simplify processes, overcome silos and collaborate more inclusively to accelerate customer-centric innovation.”
GEA BetterBot AI is continuously being fine-tuned and looking ahead, will also be capable of responding to questions on a wide range of topics in different languages. Global rollout is scheduled for the first quarter of 2024.