Microsoft has launched Jugalbandi chatbot, which is a new generative AI-enabled platform for mobile devices. The purpose of Jugalbandi is to provide information related to various Government assistance. The app is designed to understand questions in multiple languages. The Jugalbandi app automatically fetches information on relevant programs and converts them to local langauge for easy understanding. According to analytics, the vast number of Indian population is still dependent on local languages spoken in their respective state. Hence, there is a need to break this barrier by introducing Jugalbandi which serves as an intermediate tool to communicate information about various schemes effectively.
Access information in local languages
With the help of Jugalbandi, you will be able to easily access information in local language via a mobile phone. You need not have to visit a local community service center and wait in long queues to obtain the relevant information. Jugalbandi is a kind of chatbot plus because the system works like a personalized agent, says Abhigyan Raman, Project Officer, AI4Bharat. The app is developed by an open-source AI center based at the IIT Madras. The app is capable of understanding the exact problem in your language and then deliver the correct information cheaply and reliably.
Jugalbandi Tested by people
Jugalbandi was tested by Vandna, who resides in the Ferozepur Jhirka village and is employed at a local elementary school as a part-time worker. She typed a prompt in Hindi – What kind of scholarships are available for me? and also added Political Science, Hindi, and History as options. The chatbot replied with a list of central and state government programs. Jugalbandi even provided information about the documents that are needed to support the application. While a transitional search engine will not provide specific information, Jugalbandi chatbot provided all the information in a flash. The answers provided by Jugalbandi are easier to understand.
Microsoft Azure Integration
The Jugalbandi AI chatbot is powered by AI4Bharat language models and reasoning models from Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. The app is accessed via WhatsApp, which is widely used in India even by the non-tech-savvy community. You should communicate with Jugalbandi as a user and the chatbot provides answers.
Jugalbandi is part of the fast-growing generative AI tools that can dissect a wide range of text, images, and much more. The AI chatbot has fine-tuned these models using data from Indian Government databases. The usage of Azure OpenAI Service ensures data security and ships with features such as responsible AI protections. Going forward, Jugalbandi chatbot will serve as a handy tool to retrieve English language documents in Tamil. The app makes effective use of GPT models via Azure OpenAI Service.
Jugalbandi could make errors and the company urges people to test drive the chatbot aggressively. The chabot will be upgraded based on the feedback. The goal of the company is to make Jugalbandi chatbot widely available across all villages so that people can reap rich benefits. The Jugalbandi chatbot was launched in April and is currently undergoing testing in Biwan, which is a village near New Delhi.
Jugalbandi is a collaboration by Microsoft Research, AI4Bharat, OpenNyAI, and EkStep with the aim to break the barriers in the AI segment. The company is building a wide range of tools that will enable developers from various backgrounds to reap the rich benefits of ChatGPT. You can access Jugalbandi API and apps can be created using the functionalities. As of this writing, Jugalbandi chatbot is not available for public access but you can contact the team for information.
