State health watchdog adopts AI chatbot service to deal with food-related inquiries

[Courtesy of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety]

SEOUL -- South Korea's public health watchdog adopted an artificial intelligence-based administrative service that takes care of food-related inquiries such as reporting food products with contaminated substances or products that passed from their sell-by date. The chatbot deals with inquiries for 24 hours so that human assistants can focus on other tasks.

Chatbots communicate with people through text conversations. Users can choose to speak directly with human assistants if chatbots cannot provide a solution. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety adopted the chatbot service called "Foodi" to answer various questions on its website visited by some 2.7 million people every year.

AI-based customer services are used in various sectors due to their efficiency. According to "120 Dasan Call Center," Seoul's integrated civil complaints call center, the proportion of AI chatbot-based administrative service sessions accounted for 18.9 percent out of some 7.5 million inquiries in 2021. The chatbot service was adopted in 2020 to help call center operators handle many different complaints 24 hours a day. About 20,000 inquiries are made every day.

Kim Joo-heon jhkim123@ajunews.com

​State health watchdog adopts AI chatbot service to deal with food-related inquiries

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State health watchdog adopts AI chatbot service to deal with food-related inquiries