Optimizing agency tech support via AI-enabled chatbots

Facing rising help desk costs and delays, a large federal agency partnered with ICF and Appian to pilot an AI-enabled chatbot that puts answers at employees’ fingertips, reducing ticket volume, cutting costs, and improving support across mission-critical systems.

Challenge

This agency’s Appian platform houses several mission-critical applications. When agency staff struggled with these apps, they reached out to the help desk rather than each app’s long, dense user manual. Answering these questions mired the help desk staff in hours of work to solve relatively simple problems, and it came at a significant financial cost. The agency turned to ICF for ideas on how to reduce the strain on their help desk and their budget by leveraging Appian’s newly released AI capabilities.

We partnered with Appian to design a user guide chatbot, a low-complexity, high-impact AI chatbot built on Appian’s secure low-code platform. It draws from a custom-built knowledge base of manuals and documentation, enabling agency staff to get accurate answers instantly without submitting a ticket.

How it works:

• Custom knowledge base: We curated and digitized key resources, including PDFs and internal guidance documents.
• Secure AI access: Appian’s platform ensures that sensitive content stays protected, bringing AI to the data instead of the other way around.
• Role-based controls: Users only access documents relevant to their role, ensuring privacy and precision.

Where are we now

The user guide chatbot is in the proof-of-concept phase, awaiting approval to begin prototyping in a secure federal environment. Early analysis suggests the chatbot could have resolved more than 20 help desk tickets from 2024 alone. These tickets, typically related to user training, can take anywhere from one to four hours to resolve, and up to two days for more complex issues. By automating responses to routine inquiries, the user guide chatbot has the potential to significantly reduce resolution time, free up support staff, and lower operational costs.