Use Case Intelligence RSS Search use cases Search
Microsoft Public Sector Canada

City of Kelowna

Customer Service Automation

The forward-thinking City of Kelowna always looks for ways to deliver greater benefits to its citizens without increasing costs for them. Now that cognitive search technology and conversational AI are available, the city aims to use them in support of its 311 non-emergency municipal services help line.

Read the original story Explore all use cases
"Our vision is to create a fully digital-friendly 311 information service, available 24 hours a day, that can deliver accurate answers to a wide range of questions."
In 80 percent of cases, AI has already proven that it can deliver correct responses to people who call in about the snow.
Over the last few years, Pabla has noticed a shift in how citizens engage with the city. More and more often, they choose to reach out to City Hall from their mobile devices.

Reported impact

Business outcome

The forward-thinking City of Kelowna always looks for ways to deliver greater benefits to its citizens without increasing costs for them. Now that cognitive search technology and conversational AI are available, the city aims to use them in support of its 311 non-emergency municipal services help line.

  • Compliance
  • Cost Reduction
  • Customer Experience
  • Productivity Improvement
  • Risk Reduction
  • Scalability

Solution

The forward-thinking City of Kelowna always looks for ways to deliver greater benefits to its citizens without increasing costs for them. The forward-thinking City of Kelowna always looks for ways to deliver greater benefits to its citizens without increasing costs for them. Now that cognitive search technology and conversational AI are available, the city aims to use them in support of its 311 non-emergency municipal services help line. The City of Kelowna met that challenge by embracing AI chat and voice technology. In 2022, in addition to its existing AI solutions, Kelowna automated conversations about its airport with a Microsoft Azure -based solution from Zammo.ai. Two years ago, the government of British Columbia gave Kelowna a grant that funded its use of cognitive search technology in the housing sector. The implementation centers on Azure OpenAI Service, Azure to support customer service automation workflows.

Solution architecture

2 components · 1 layer
  1. Compute
    • Azure OpenAI Service Generates responses and language understanding for the customer-facing or employee-facing assistant.
    • Azure Provides the underlying cloud infrastructure, identity, and managed services for the solution.

Architecture clues

  • Deployed on Azure OpenAI Service for canada operations.

Evidence from the source

"Our vision is to create a fully digital-friendly 311 information service, available 24 hours a day, that can deliver accurate answers to a wide range of questions."
The City of Kelowna met that challenge by embracing AI chat and voice technology. In 2022, in addition to its existing AI solutions, Kelowna automated conversations about its airport with a Microsoft Azure -based solution from Zammo.ai.
The forward-thinking City of Kelowna always looks for ways to deliver greater benefits to its citizens without increasing costs for them.
Transparency Evidence & methodology 75/100 reference value · 82% confidence · 1 source

Review how this reference was scored and trace each normalized claim back to its documented source.

01

Scoring methodology

How scores are calculated

Customer Reference Value measures usefulness as a customer reference. Evidence Confidence measures the quality and traceability of available evidence, not independent verification.

Customer reference value75/100
  • Problem clarity20/20
    Measures whether the customer's operational problem is specific enough to compare.
  • Implementation depth15/25
    Rewards named components, data flow, integrations, and architecture detail.
  • Outcome specificity20/20
    Measures whether the reported benefit is concrete rather than a generic claim.
  • Quantified impact15/25
    1 metric describe measurable impact.
  • Deployment scale5/10
    Rewards evidence of a live or scaled deployment and meaningful integration scope.
Evidence confidence82%
  • Source authority20/25
    The main evidence is an official vendor-published customer story.
  • Claim traceability21/25
    10 of 12 key fields link to a named source.
  • Direct evidence15/20
    3 direct source quotes retained.
  • Date provenance10/10
    The publication date comes from the source page or publisher.
  • Source transparency8/10
    1 source reference document publisher, URL, authority, retrieval, and supported fields.
  • Implementation specificity8/10
    Rewards source-backed components, data flow, quantified impact, and a specific outcome.
02

Traceability

Sources & provenance

Field coverage shows which facts each source supports. Dates are shown only when documented by the source.

  1. Microsoft

    City of Kelowna customer story

    First-party
    https://www.microsoft.com/en/customers/story/1641166525350342888-city-of-kelowna-government-azure-open-ai-service
    Source type
    Vendor-published customer story
    Published
    Jun 14, 2023
    Supports
    • Customer
    • Business problem
    • Solution
    • Products
    • Solution components
    • Data flow
    • Integrations
    • technical area
    • use case category
    • Business outcome
    • outcome category
    • Metrics
    • Architecture
    • evidence quotes
    • Publication date

Date evidence

  • Published on source page Jun 14, 2023 · Microsoft · First-party
    Open date source
Not separately sourced Industry, Region, Company size. Treat these normalized attributes as lower-confidence until a dedicated source is added.

Related

Similar use cases

See all like this
Microsoft Jan 28, 2025 Government of the City of Buenos Aires Public Sector Argentina The Government of the City of Buenos Aires faced a challenge in the management of multiple service channels and in the personalization of key services for residents and tourists. 50% operational load reduction and 6,539 real-time interactions in one night Customer Service AutomationEnterprise Knowledge Search Azure OpenAI Service Microsoft Dec 9, 2024 Hellenic Cadastre Public Sector Greece Hellenic Cadastre, responsible for Greece's property records, faced delays and inefficiencies as property transactions required manual processing of paper documents, leaving some citizens waiting months or even years to… The system also tracks the cost per assessment. "Right now, the cost of each contract assessment is 0.11 euros,… Customer Service AutomationDocument Processing Azure OpenAI Service · Power BI Microsoft Nov 1, 2024 Madrid Destino / Madrid City Council Public Sector Spain The City of Madrid recognized the potential of generative AI to connect with visitors in an innovative way. It relied on iUrban‘s expertise and Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to develop the VisitMadridGPT AI virtual… City of Madrid created VisitMadridGPT with Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, offering tourists accurate,… Customer Service AutomationEnterprise Knowledge Search Azure OpenAI Service