This really is an innovation – Helvetia Switzerland is the world’s first listed insurance company to launch a chatbot service based on OpenAI’s GPT technology, and Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts is supporting the project from a research perspective and providing expertise in chatbot technology. When customers chat with Clara, Helvetia Switzerland’s new chatbot, they are using the latest GPT technology.
Clara online with GPT in less than 4 months
Since March 30, 2023, customers of Helvetia Insurance Switzerland can become part of the experiment and chat directly with the “new” Clara via their web browser. Apart from the impressive capabilities of the chatbot Clara, the speed of the entire Helvetia team is also unique.
The Helvetia team began the first tests as soon as the GPT API was published. These were so successful that it didn’t stop at a few tests, but the actual implementation of the “new” Clara followed. Less than 4 months later, the new chat service is online and delivers amazingly good results.
What exactly does “Clara uses GPT” mean?
GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an artificial intelligence that can access huge amounts of text and answer questions based on it. Helvetia is the world’s first listed insurance company to use this OpenAI technology as part of a live experiment with Clara, Helvetia Switzerland’s digital assistant.
The service uses artificial intelligence to answer customer questions about insurance and pensions. Clara’s new chatbot service provides information on insurance, pensions and home ownership. The software draws on content from Helvetia Switzerland – for example, product pages or advice articles.
What is so special about the “new” Clara?
Until now, insurance customers could only use OpenAI’s general chatbot, known as ChatGPT. Neither insurance companies nor customers have any influence on the content when using ChatGPT. ChatGPT forms its answers on the basis of a broad mass of content, which can quickly lead to errors, especially in the context of insurance. But despite this “flaw”, OpenAI’s chatbot has delighted millions of users; the way in which artificial intelligence can conduct human dialog and even understand context is impressive.
The new live experiment with Clara is different: although Clara and Helvetia use the language model from GPT and OpenAI, the answers all come from the content provided to the chatbot by the Helvetia Switzerland team. The chatbot’s susceptibility to errors is significantly reduced. But compared to the classic Clara, the “new” Clara can also understand context and the way she dialogs is similar to that of a human.
What does this look like in practice?
Chatbots without the use of GPT work either rule-based or intent-based. Both functions have limited content. As soon as user queries become too specific, most rule-based or intent-based bots are unable to find answers.
The “new” Clara can do much more. The following is an example of insurance cover for the loss of an e-bike display. While most readers probably don’t even know that such an e-bike display can be stolen, Clara is very familiar with the subject. She also understands follow-up questions without any problems and answers customer queries in just 2 minutes.
Insurance companies that continue to use rule- or intent-based bots can usually only answer such specific questions through humans. This quickly leads to a processing time of five days (see the following e-mail correspondence).
What’s next for Clara and GPT?
Helvetia clearly characterizes its new service as an experiment: the company and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts want to explore the potential of language models such as ChatGPI and find out how customers accept such services.
The fact that this is an experiment is clearly described in the terms of use. Helvetia Insurance also provides a lot of background information on how ChatGPT and Clara work on its website.
Is Clara only for Helvetia customers?
The Clara chatbot not only provides information on Helvetia-specific topics, but is also able to answer general questions about insurance in Switzerland. The bot could thus become a general insurance assistant that answers any questions about insurance in Switzerland. This service would be a great added value, especially for foreign citizens in Switzerland.
And now?
I am delighted to have been able to support the project in the background from the very beginning. Of course, I was able to gain a lot of new insights myself. Next comes the evaluation of the experiment and the continuous optimization of Clara.
If you would like to use GPT in your bot or have any further questions, please send me a WhatsApp message or an e-mail.
And I recommend EVERYONE to chat with Clara – it’s really fun! www.helvetia.ch/frag-clara
