Obotti mobile app aims to recommend books that interest the customer and that they might not otherwise discover. Photo: City of Helsinki - Maarit Hohteri

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A book recommendation robot that helps customers find interesting reading material has been introduced at Central Library Oodi. Obotti mobile app recommends suitable literature for everyone from the Oodi collection. Obotti is an example of the City’s AI experiments that seek to improve services.

Obotti mobile app aims to recommend books that interest the customer and that they might not otherwise discover.

Obotti contains six themed characters, or chatbots, with programmed interests. Users can select a bot that suits their preferences to give them recommendations based on both the bot’s own preferences and the selections the user has made.

The service aims to recommend books that interest the customer and that they might not otherwise discover.

Obotti learns from your selections

The app learns from the customer’s choices and constantly offers new material. The experience is interactive, the recommendations reflect the user’s preferences and you can teach your bot to offer better recommendations for you. Obotti has different personalities that users may utilise to approach Oodi’s materials from different angles.

The easy-to-use Obotti app is available in Finnish, Swedish and English, and it will only recommend material that is available in Oodi at the moment. Obotti can also be set to only recommend materials for children and young people.

Obotti is a mobile app developed by HeadAI. It utilises artificial intelligence and anyone can use it at Oodi or at home. You can download the app from the Google PlayStore or AppStore.

AI more and more prevalent in services

The City of Helsinki uses many similar chatbots. The parking chatbot, for example, is a customer service channel that provides automatic answers to any parking-related questions round the clock. The maternity clinic chatbot NeRo answers clinic clients’ questions without the need to join a queue.

Central Library Oodi is an innovative library, and we want to create new and inspiring ways to give people access to our materials. We are in the process of developing Obotti, and we want customers to share their user experiences and provide feedback on the app. Click here to take the customer survey.

Source: Helsinki City

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