Thousands of Monmouthshire residents have chatted with the county council’s new chatbot, Monty, since its launch last month.

Since January 25, Monty has helped with questions ranging from school meals, snow-day updates, and garden waste, to more complex issues like benefits, and council tax queries.

Monty is constantly evolving and learning how to answer residents’ frequently-asked questions, and is available day or night, said a council spokesperson.

This means council staffed have more time staff to solve with more complex needs—such as homelessness or adoption.

Peter Fox, council leader, said, “We’re really proud of Monty, who replies to everyone in Welsh or English to give people in Wales the choice.  I would encourage everyone to speak to Monty this St. David’s Day as the more replies and answers he learns, the faster we’re going to be able to provide people with the information they want, when they want it.

“We are constantly innovating in Monmouthshire and it has been wonderful working with our South Wales tech company partners, We Build Bots to expand our digital capability into machine learning and artificial intelligence.  I would like to thank our colleagues who are working with Monty to ensure that responsiveness improves all the time.”

Paul Shepherd, CEO at We Build Bots added, “Monmouthshire County Council has a reputation for innovation so it was a natural choice when we were looking at councils to approach to discuss our AI and automation tools.  The fact that we could flex our bilingual capabilities on this project was a bonus.  We’re committed to helping local authorities all across the UK save time and money while delivering improved citizen experiences, and our work with Monmouthshire has been a precursor to a number of other projects in the sector."

Residents can access Monty via monmouthshire.gov.uk or on Facebook messenger: @MonmouthshireCC.