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TECbot, the virtual assistant from Tec de Monterrey, is the winner of the Planet Chatbot Awards 2022, a competition sponsored by one of the leading organizations in artificial intelligence (AI) conversational technology.
The Tec chatbot won in the category “Corporate Chatbots” after competing internationally against other virtual assistants of organizations and companies from various regions of the Hispanic world. In the 2022 awards, Tec’s virtual assistant won along with the chatbot “Natura” from the Spanish company Freshly Cosmetics in the “Startup” category.
“We were able to compete with companies worldwide developing these types of solutions. Obtaining this distinction helps us corroborate that we are on the right track,” said Lucero Sotomayor, Information Management Leader of the TECbot program.
The winning TECbot qualities
The winning attendees of the Planet Chatbot Awards were evaluated by a jury composed of professionals and experts in artificial intelligence and service topics, who assessed the features and functionalities of the chatbots and voicebots.
“The jurors evaluated four parameters, and based on their votes, we were chosen winners. We consider ourselves strong in innovation in the sector and in accomplishing the objective for which TECbot was created, “said Anantonieta Morales, Digital Communications strategist of the TECbot project, who also explained the indicators considered by the jury to choose the winners:
- User Experience
- Cognitive ability
- Fulfillment of the purpose for which it was created
- Innovation in the sector
Having been selected as one of the chatbot winners, the TECbot design team will receive an invitation to share their progress at one of the 2023 events organized by the portal specialized in conversational technology.
TECbot: the virtual assistant from Tec de Monterrey
The technology of the TECbot virtual assistant facilitates connecting to the information and financial systems of Tecnologico de Monterrey to attend to the needs of students, teachers, collaborators, and parents.
Anantonieta Morales pointed out that the artificial intelligence of Microsoft Azure was used for developing TECbot in an ecosystem allowing infrastructure integration of services, data, and artificial intelligence strategies. “Thanks to this set of connections, TECbot can identify the person with whom it is interacting and offer personalized services, for example, to help students consult their balances and registration dates, among others,” explained Morales.
Tecbot offers services and accompaniment to students, teachers, collaborators, and relatives through Tec’s “mitec” application and portal, Canvas, and to external parties through WhatsApp, found with the number 811 625 5123.
To date, TECbot can offer solutions to 133 topics of attention and perform 35 automated processes for different users, which, in the opinion of its creators, makes it a multipurpose chatbot. “One of the objectives pursued by the TECbot development team was to provide it with the ability to answer any questions or concerns that the user expresses,” added Morales.
The evolution of TECbot
In 2021, Tec launched the TECbot virtual assistant, which was initially aimed to support the enrollment process for students on the Tec Monterrey campus, but then its field of operation was extended to other users and services.
Lucero Sotomayor pointed out that one of the main challenges was the technological part and understanding what type of architecture would allow the project to be scalable to grow and serve different users. “From the beginning, the architecture was defined with certain characteristics to allow organic growth so TECbot could continue to provide good services without changing the solution’s architecture.”
Another challenge was that its developers needed to understand how the different service areas operated. “We had to go to those functional areas, understand their processes for services and attention, extract that knowledge, and structure it so that TECbot could understand it through the data structures loading that information,” Sotomayor added.
Also, for the Tec virtual assistant to stay current, it has been necessary to structure knowledge as the different services undergo changes. “This award gives us the encouragement and desire to continue growing and improving TECbot and transform it into a third-generation assistant that can even provide users recommendations based on their behaviors,” said the Information Management leader of the TECbot program.
About the Planet Chatbot Awards
The awards are given by Planet Chatbot, a portal leader in information on conversational technology and artificial intelligence that recognizes initiatives in the Hispanic world.
Carmen Reyes, manager of Enabling Analytics, Business Intelligence, and Information Management Solutions at Tec, commented that obtaining this award reflects international recognition of the institution’s efforts. “That other organizations recognize and see value in our qualifications and accomplishments exemplifies how in this institution, we know how to do things very well thanks to the talent of the people who make them a reality,” said Reyes.
The jury in charge of defining the winners of this edition comprised specialists from companies such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, Telefónica, and other institutions.
With information from CONECTA
Translation by Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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