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'How Not To' Series: A Rather Thoughtful AI Assistant



We love Austria. We love mountains. And we love Austrian mountains. That's why it is so upsetting to see Austrian Tourism Authority in Wagrain-Kleinarl getting it so wrong with AI Assistant or rather Wagrain-Kleinarl AI-Concierge as they called it.


Before we delve into their shortcomings, let's acknowledge what they are doing well. The Wagrain-Kleinarl Tourism Authority is making commendable progress by implementing an AI Assistant on their website. Their decision to establish a dedicated AI-Concierge WhatsApp number demonstrates their forward-thinking approach. Furthermore, they provide their AI-Concierge with valuable information, surpassing the efforts of many other hospitality companies in this regard.


Now, what has Wagrain-Kleinarl Tourism Authority got wrong?


Firstly, their AI-Concierge takes his time to think. In other words, he is quite slow. Sometimes so slow you think he has forgotten all about your question. In the speedy times we live in even 2 seconds can be too slow. In case of the Wagrain-Kleinarl AI-Concierge the waiting time stretches beyond 2 seconds.


Secondly, the AI-Concierge mixes up languages. When asked in English, he sometimes answers in German. So, in the conversation, one has to remind him that one speaks, for example, English. The question that arises here is 'What's the point of having the AI-Concierge speaking German on the site dedicated to tourism and promotion of a specific region?' Obviously, in modern times tourists who come to the Wagrain-Kleinarl region are of different cultural and national backgrounds. So, the region's AI-Concierge should be able to cater to all of them in their own language.



Thirdly, to our liking the Wagrain-Kleinarl AI-Concierge is not conversational enough. His answers are rather patterned and mechanical. One has an impression that one chats with a 'brochure' and not with an intelligent AI Assistant. One of the sources of his problem can be the wrong type of LLM used for creation of the AI-Concierge. Although, we must say that most of the LLM are intelligent enough to be more conversational than the Wagrain-Kleinarl AI-Concierge. This makes us think that perhaps it is the way the AI-Concierge was trained by the Tourism Authority.


When we pointed out to the AI-Concierge that we did not speak German, he did not acknowledge the problem but instead started talking about the region, repeating the information it gave in the beginning of the conversation. This means that the AI-Concierge was not responsive to the customer.



And finally, having so many links pasted at the end of each reply is overwhelming and very annoying. This approach gives an impression of the AI-Concierge pushing all the 'hard' work to the customer instead of actually working on providing answers and relevant information in a conversational, friendly and pleasant manner.


In summary, good initiative but very poorly executed and not thought through from the customers' point of view. Not customer smart at all we'd say.


For you to see the difference between the above mentioned AI-Concierge and the AI Assistant who is faster and more helpful, we have created two Testers which you are welcome to try out. Both testers are based on Claude 3.5 Sonnet LLM.





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