AI-George is a new virtual AI data assistant designed to help local governments understand how shared micromobility influences the vitality of their town or city.
AI-George can answer questions on the fly, produce new analysis, generate insights, create reports and make recommendations.
The tool has been built by global analytics platform Anadue.
Zag sat down with Anadue exec Adam Tarshis to find out more.
Zag Daily: Why do you feel cities and operators need this virtual assistant?
Adam: “AI-George exists to build trust between operators and cities. The regulations imposed by cities on shared micromobility operators have come about because of a lack of trust. We know that there have been lots of issues integrating e-scooters and e-bikes into cities, from parking compliance to vehicle clutter, and AI-George is an opportunity to be that trusted, faithful spokesperson for an operator. To assist city officials with any quick-fire questions whenever they need answers.
“We know a need exists for this capability as we support our customers trying to answer a wide range of unique and constantly changing questions from the local governments of the towns and cities where they operate.”
Zag Daily: So AI-George will speed up the lines of communication between city officials and the operator?
Adam: “Yes, exactly. Day-to day operations between a city and operator are currently highly restricted by the manual process of emails. The city might send an email and maybe get an answer by the end of the day, or the next day and then they’ll have questions about that answer, and it’ll go back and forth over days, right? AI-George provides an interactive, real-time, conversational experience for the city. It’s quick feedback. It’s a scalable response. Cities know not to ask 100 questions a day to a human, but they can ask 100 questions a day to AI-George, and AI-George isn’t going to complain. So the communication can increase in bandwidth, and this is the city’s opportunity to really engage with the data they want.”
Zag Daily: We recently had a conversation with your other new AI mobility assistant called Ana. Is AI-George a spin-off from that?
Adam: “Yes, but the key difference is that Ana is for people asking questions internally within a micromobility organisation whereas with AI-George, the questions are coming from outside the organisation. They’re coming from a third party that is the local government. That’s the biggest difference. The second very significant difference is that AI-George only has access to data that the operator is willing to share, so nothing commercially confidential.”
Zag Daily: How does the city interact with George?
Adam: “It will be via a web app on our servers that is provided to the city on behalf of the operator. In the future, it may be verbal communication, a civil servant could literally ask AI-George questions as if speaking to an operator’s employee.”
Zag Daily: What types of questions will cities be asking AI-George?
Adam: “Common questions might be – ‘how many trips took place in this borough?’ or ‘What was the maximum number of scooters on the street yesterday?’. But George is also capable of answering much more complex questions like ‘Where do most trips to the business park originate from?’ or ‘At what time were the most scooters parked near the station?’. George will also provide insights and suggestions, answering questions like ‘Which areas in the city could benefit from more shared e-scooters?’
“The beauty of AI-George is that he can answer questions from many different departments of local government. This will be very useful as you’ll have a specific team focused on shared micromobility that will be monitoring the performance of the scheme, but there will also be other people that have totally different interests like education, road design or supporting local businesses and retailers. All these people can now get the answers they need about shared micromobility to perform their tasks more effectively.”
Zag Daily: On the reverse side – what are the benefits for an operator?
Adam: “Not having to respond to every single question a city official asks will result in huge time savings for operators, but there’s another opportunity here which is to use AI-George to inform the operator of hot topics of interest to the government. For instance, if somebody at the UK’s Department for Transport is asking regular questions about parking compliance, this signals to the operator that this is an area of concern, and they can resolve any issues before they escalate.
“Not only that but AI-George can become a tool for operators to win tenders in new cities. By saying they will offer AI-George as part of a package compared to what other operators are offering is a big bonus. If one person is offering a fixed weekly report, and you’re offering the fixed weekly report, plus the ability to ask pretty much any question you want in a conversational format, then there will be a competitive advantage.”
Zag Daily: What is your overall vision for AI-George?
Adam: “The vision here is that AI-George creates a huge opportunity for cities and operators to work together. We see AI-George as the middle broker between them who shares that data transparently. Cities will find a way to use him to his maximum extent. At this early stage, he can already generate valuable insights, and answer hard questions. It’s an indicator of what he can do, but in the future, AI-George will become even more valuable to the city.
“The amount of data he has access to, and the amount of insights he can create, will become ever greater as AI-George learns from interactions with the city, about what is important to that city, and how best to serve them. Making this data and these insights available in such an easy, natural manner, will create a relationship based on trust between the operator and the city. This will be a huge step forward for everyone.”
