As part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “request for innovative ideas” (RFI2) procurement protocol, officials chose Sacramento-based SymSoft Solutions LLC to provide a tool using generative AI (GenAI) to solve a technology need: The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) wanted to improve customer service through its call centers. The idea was to develop a GenAI product CDTFA customer service agents could use to more quickly and efficiently help callers with their transactions, rapidly searching more than 16,000 pages of reference materials to help staff respond to taxpayers via telephone and live chat.
A recent news release from the governor’s office gave this overview:
“During a pilot project carried out over the last 10 months, Symsoft Solutions LLC used their Axyom Assist that utilizes Claude, a LLM (large language model) developed by Anthropic, to reduce the time it takes to handle an average CDTFA customer inquiry,” Newsom’s release said. “Typically, during peak tax filing periods, an additional 280 staff from throughout the department are temporarily reassigned to provide backup to the call center. With this new technology, CDTFA will be able to continue providing excellent customer service while limiting the need for disruptions from staff reassignments.”
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SymSoft, founded in 2006, created its Axyom division in the spring of 2023 with the goal of using emerging technologies to streamline and secure citizens’ interactions with government through the use of blockchain, verifiable credentials, AI and machine learning.
For CDTFA, Axyom Assist “will provide real-time guidance to customer service representatives, understanding the customer’s query from just the conversation, and then surfacing relevant information for them,” Farooqui said in an interview this week with Industry Insider — California. “The focus is internal; however, the impact is external in the sense that since the agents would have information at their fingertips, they would be able to be more effective in answering the user questions. That’s the objective; that’s the expectation,” she said.
After SymSoft was chosen for the project, a team of five tech professionals — developer, project manager, AI and software engineers and solution architect — spent six months playing in the virtual sandbox, the test bed that’s hosted by the California Department of Technology (CDT). That meant not only refining the Axyom Assist product but also working out bugs and making sure the tool met muster for cybersecurity.
The process, as might be expected, involved researching the user experience, so SymSoft worked with a group of CDTFA customer service representatives. Their input was included in the development phase.
“This was a focused, targeted user group,” Farooqui said. “The POC required us to demonstrate the feature’s functionality and to meet all of CDT’s requirements — the security, the privacy, all making sure that the solution will work for the state, considering the policies and guidelines that the state has established. The POC included the hands-on user trial period where the CDTFA staff actually used it and simulated their day-to-day workflows. And so, after the evaluation, they selected us to move forward.”
As is the case with the RFI2 “challenges” that state agencies put forth, the participating vendor companies were each paid a nominal $1 fee for their pitches. Now that the product has been greenlighted and the contract signed, the company has licensed Axyom Assist to CDTFA, at an unspecified cost.
Bhavik Patel, SymSoft’s chief executive officer, explained how Axyom fits into the company’s overall mission and portfolio.
“This project is part of our solution suite, but it's like we are extending what we have been doing all along,” Patel said, “which is that we want to build better connections between citizen and government or business and government. And we are providing tools that will directly help the citizens or businesses as well as the internal staff, so through the use of GenAI, we are enhancing it further. So it's like continuing or building on our core mission of connecting people and government, but using GenAI to take it to the next level.”
Patel said that for SymSoft, the project has had multiple benefits beyond the business side.
“The thing is, it was also an opportunity to work with real customers, understand real problems and make sure that our solution works in the real-life scenarios,” he said.
“Many times I've seen companies build products, but if they don't have the customer, then there is no use," Patel said. "And that mismatch happens because the vision of the companies and the real needs — there might be a gap between the two, right? And so this allowed us the opportunity to look at real needs, deliver the solution while meeting California's guidelines, and basically make it real.”
Daniel Calzada, SymSoft’s director of solutions delivery, described how the CDTFA project energized his technologists.
“I could see how everyone on that team, all the different parties involved, really wanted this to happen and really wanted to explore and to see the potential of using this technology to solve real problems for Californians,” Calzada said. “That was definitely something that we enjoyed during the process. I could see also that people in the state, and even team members, seemed to get really excited about this.
“You have this idea of GenAI as chatbot only, or like what you use in your phone, but having that understanding of how you can use this technology to improve people's lives, and putting it in something tangible, has been really exciting," Calzada said. "And I think there's more of that coming in the state of California with the type of initiatives like this one we're doing now.”
CDTFA Director Trista Gonzalez was also gratified with the process.
“California is demonstrating that GenAI can help us improve the way we do business for Californians,” Gonzalez said in the governor’s news release. “This project will serve as a proof point moving forward to see if we can scale this technology across state government call centers.” (CDTFA's 2023-2025 strategic plan is available here. Its chief information officer is Scott Capulong.)
Farooqui added: “What we are planning to do is actually expand beyond California for this solution. So now that we do have the product, what we have been doing in California — the successful communication between citizens and government — we want to expand in other states, especially using GenAI for customer service.”
With California leading the nation in government use of GenAI, might this technology intimidate some states that aren't as far down the road as California? Is it too cutting edge?
“We are there for support,” Farooqui said, “so just the way we did it in California, where we start with baby steps, we’d start with the proof of concept, kind of work with the agencies, educate them on the way, and they see the value before they adopt it. So that's the model that we want to follow. With the success of using GenAI in California, we want to see how we can support others, too.”
The state and vendors are still working on proposals for using GenAI for operational efficiencies in housing, workforce planning and bill analysis. The state anticipates finalizing this round by summer. More information is available at genai.ca.gov.
