The chatbot, also referred to as SANDI (Self-Help Assistant Navigator for Digital Interactions), “can understand user requests in English and Spanish and can help web visitors find frequently requested information, such as judicial directories, courtroom Zoom ID numbers and case information,” according to a National Center for State Courts report.
Other features offered by the chatbot include:
- A moving avatar — a digital representation of a person whose eyes follow the cursor — to make the technology more human-like and user-friendly
- Speech-to-text and voice command technologies allowing those who are using a microphone-enabled device to speak a question rather than type it
- Free-flow conversation and context awareness to help users navigate the circuit’s website via natural language processing
- Session continuation and session follow-up to retain conversations from one part of the website to another and provide more information on what can be done on a new page
To get SANDI up and running, the Eleventh Judicial Circuit relied on a federal grant from the State Justice Institute in collaboration with the National Center for State Courts and Advanced Robot Solutions (ARS).
Once funding was secured, Sandy Lonergan, a former trial court administrator for the Eleventh Circuit, worked with Advanced Robot Solutions to implement the chatbot.
Requirements for the chatbot included speaking multiple languages, providing interactive access, answering questions and taking web visitors directly to specific web pages.
“We work with a lot of court systems, and we found Miami to be the most innovative, the most proactive,” ARS CEO Paul McManus said in the report. “Doing innovation requires teamwork between the developer and the client, and sometimes things happen in a vacuum, and we don’t get feedback. On this project, we learned as much as they did because their approach was completely organized, collaborative and cooperative.”
In the span of a year, SANDI had a knowledge base of 35 question-answer pairs and an action knowledge base of 826 questions. Based on interactions with users, SANDI has been able to synthesize answers for 120 more questions and keeps growing.
“This was a proof of concept and proof of technology,” said Robert Adelardi, the Eleventh Circuit’s chief technology officer, in the report. “SANDI is proof that artificial intelligence-based technology for two-way communication, using a guided interview, can be developed and assist website visitors.”
Statistics further emphasized this point; from July 23 to Aug. 23, 2022, a total of 3,545 unique users interacted with the chatbot. A few months later, in January 2023, that number jumped to 4,961 unique users.
The Eleventh Circuit’s Family Courts Self-Help Program also saw additional notable statistics.
“Prior to the launch of the SANDI chatbot, we averaged about 950 live chats monthly,” said Juan C. Carmenate, director of the Family Courts Self-Help Program, in the report. “Once SANDI went live at the end of July 2022, we started seeing the number of live chats go down significantly, especially as we kept adding more knowledge to the SANDI chatbot. Currently, we average about 55 live chats a month.”
Moving forward, Lonergan’s successor, Trial Court Administrator Deirdre Dunham, plans to expand SANDI’s capabilities.
“Phase 3 of SANDI’s deployment will add specific knowledge bases for more court divisions as well as enhanced performance of the AI technology — both in context recognition and question-answering functions. Further down the line, the plan is to add Creole, which is a very phonetic-intensive language, as a third language, and migrate the technology to kiosks that can be placed in libraries, retail stores and other public areas,” the report states.
