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Surrey rolls out ‘Siri for cities’ app powered by IBM’s Watson

Surrey rolls out ‘Siri for cities’ app powered by IBM’s Watson

The City of Surrey in British Columbia is testing a new app feature that allows residents to find city information using IBM’s Watson, the supercomputer that outperformed its rival contestant on Jeopardy in 2011 to take the $1-million prize.

The new feature, which is being hailed as a “Siri for cities,” was added to the existing My Surrey app and is able to process voice requests submitted via cellphone, laptop or Apple Watch.

Watson, a cognitive computing platform created by IBM, is able to interact with natural language, analyze huge volumes of data and respond to complex questions with concise, evidence-based solutions.

Developed by Ottawa software developer Purple Forge, the app allows users to ask Watson questions about a variety of municipal services. In turn, Watson has been trained to provide answers on bylaws, animal control, parking, waste collection, emergency services, utilities, property taxes and more.

Among the questions the City of Surrey and Purple Forge predict Watson will be asked are “how many dogs can I have on my property?” and “can you put plastic bags in the organic cart?”

In addition to allowing users to come up with their own queries, Watson also offers a list of frequently asked questions. According to IBM, Surrey officials — who weren’t immediately available for comment — are hopeful that the app will allow them to be more responsive to residents’ concerns. It is immediately available to anyone who has downloaded and updated the My Surrey app.

Purple Forge CEO Brian Hurley told the Ottawa Citizen that the app could help reduce the number of calls made to city services like 311, representing savings of up to $6 per call. Hurley also said that other Canadian municipalities are looking into similar services.

The same day the app was launched Purple Forge announced on Wednesday that it was a Watson Ecosystem Partner, which enabled the company to develop community service-oriented apps embedded with Watson’s capabilities.

“IBM Watson’s learning abilities are such that the technology builds its knowledge and improves as citizens use it, much in the same way humans learn,” says Surrey Coun. Bruce Hayne, chair of the innovation and investment committee in a statement. “This pilot is expected to enhance customer experience by increasing the accessibility of services, while providing the City with insight into opportunities for improvement and reduction to service delivery costs.”

In 2012, Surrey was one of two Canadian cities to win a $400,000 grant from IBM as part of their Smarter Cities Challenge. Part of the grant gave Surrey access to top experts at IBM who offered solutions for improved growth and better service delivery in their Smarter Cities Challenge Report of Recommendations.

Surrey was also named one of the “Top 7 Intelligent Communities of 2015” by U.S.-based think-tank Intelligent Community Forum.