Introducing a New Touchpoint for Exhibitors and Visitors at Major Trade Fair & Congress Center with AI Chatbot Solutions

Executive Summary

• Goals: Elevate the event experience at an exhibition hall by implementing eight tailored AI chatbots for optimized navigation and visitor interactions.
• Solution: Develop 8 custom chatbots based on Azure OpenAI seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service to ensure swift and convenient information retrieval for the users.
• Benefits: The implemented GenAI chatbots helped the customer improve the overall facility efficiency and reduce operational costs by accelerating information search for both visitors and exhibitors, minimizing human intervention, and optimizing the event management processes.
• Services delivered: Microsoft Azure Solutions, Dynamics 365 Contact Center Integration, Microsoft Power Automate, Intelligent Automation.

Client Background

Messe Stuttgart, a prominent player in the exhibition and event management sector, operates a leading convention center known for hosting diverse national and international events. With a strategic location, they provide a hub for industry connections and business opportunities.

Business Challenge

Messe Stuttgart’s main goal was to enhance visitor experiences at exhibitions and events hosted at their facility. The specific request was to develop chatbots to partly handle coordination and information functions traditionally managed by reception workers. The project had to be completed as quickly as possible, with a tight deadline of just 1.5 months. This urgency was driven by the need to have functional chatbots ready for specific exhibition opening dates.

Cloud Value as a strategic advisor, solved the challenges of the customer's project together with Tietoevry as a technology partner. The initial concept of incorporating chatbots was introduced by Cloud Value, with Infopulse, part of Tietoevry Create, contributing to technology and project approach suggestions. Messe Stuttgart specified the use of the Microsoft Technology Stack, emphasizing the inclusion of a voice interface.

In response, we crafted a comprehensive presentation that not only outlined the specific needs of the exhibition center but also advocated for the adoption of Azure OpenAI as the preferred approach. This strategic recommendation was rooted in our expertise, ensuring the delivery of a customized solution tailored to meet the unique needs and objectives of Messe Stuttgart.

Solution & Business Value

The team developed and deployed 8 AI chatbots, each tailored for a specific exhibition at the convention center. The chatbots seamlessly provided the requested information relevant to the respective exhibitions. As a result, AI chatbots successfully managed 90% of visitors' information requests during the exhibitions.

The proposed development approach led to outstanding automation outcomes. With over 5.000 interactions during the exhibition period (23.-28.11.), the delivered Azure OpenAI-based chatbots allowed us to achieve the following stunning results:

• Speed: Integrating Azure OpenAI-driven chatbots into the exhibition experience significantly reduced wait times for visitors. The average chatbot interaction lasted around 3 minutes, offering a quicker alternative to seeking help from administrators in person, which often involves waiting in queues and searching for a proper specialist.
• Cost savings: The GenAI chatbots streamlined call center operations and visitor-informing tasks for employees, limiting their involvement to just 10% of information-related work. This led to decreased costs for exhibition organizers. Overall, the implementation of the custom chatbots translated into saving 270+ man-hours for the client’s employees.
• Efficiency: The chatbots optimized operational workflows at the convention center by reducing queues and providing visitors with more time to explore exhibitions. Through the utilization of AI chatbots for routine queries, human assistance was reserved for emergencies and unique inquiries, which enhanced resource allocation for Messe Stuttgart.
• Usability: The use of chatbots resulted in improved navigation and information retrieval for exhibition visitors. Moreover, the chatbots extended their functionality to exhibitors, facilitating their application submissions. This approach accelerated application processing by categorizing and managing visitor and exhibitor requests, eliminating the need for employees to sort out the queries.
• Flexibility: The solution allows for smooth reconfiguration of the AI chatbots for the upcoming exhibitions held at the convention center, so there is no need to create new ones from scratch for new events. Now exhibition organizers can swiftly adjust to the evolving exhibition requirements and visitor demands while still providing guests with a personalized experience.
• Accessibility: Azure OpenAI-based chatbots, available via phone and on exhibition websites, improve convenience for visitors through instant access to information and assistance.

Technical Details

We developed 8 AI chatbots using Microsoft Copilot Studio, a low-code conversational AI solution. The delivered chatbots were integrated with Dynamics 365 Contact Center, ensuring a unified communication channel for voice, email, chat, and chatbots. The use of Power Automate further streamlined these interactions by automating a range of tasks, such as creating new contacts and cases, distributing email notifications to visitors/exhibitors, and deleting the information once the cases were resolved.

During the project, the Dynamics 365 Contact Center integration presented a challenge, as documented methods proved ineffective. However, we devised a unique workaround that allowed us to successfully address the integration challenges.

The delivered chatbots harnessed the capabilities of Azure AI Search, leveraging its robust features to index the content of exhibition websites. This process was enhanced by incorporating the retrieval augmented generation (RAG) concept. This AI framework involves a dual-step approach: at first a custom Python-based bot indexes the website content and adds it to the Azure AI Search. Consequently, the RAG model is used to analyze the user’s text-based prompts, retrieve the pertinent information from the web pages, and deliver a concise and user-friendly response via Azure OpenAI. The exhibition chatbots offer multilingual support, leveraging the language-agnostic capabilities of Azure OpenAI GPT.

Technologies & Tools