Fast help for customers
The system house Winweb provides its customers with a chatbot. “Our intelligent assistant answers all questions about our company and our winweb-food software,” says Jan Schummers, senior software engineer at Winweb Informationstechnologie GmbH, who is driving the use of AI. “And all in a matter of seconds.”
Gen-AI, short for Generative Artificial Intelligence, is currently on everyone's lips in the tech world: “This technology marks a turning point in how digital assistance is understood and can be used,” says Schummers. A prime example of the practical use of Gen-AI is ChatGPT, which many people already use in daily life. Winweb has now developed its own chatbot that answers customer questions about the company and the ERP software winweb-food. “The AI uses our information system WinwebWiki and the entries in the help function at winweb-food,” explains Schummers.
Through collaboration with DataStax, which specializes in creating AI, the chatbot was realized based on RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology. As a result, the Winweb AI answers even complex questions through targeted searches in many different sources and achieves significantly higher relevance and precision of the information.
In a first step, the content from various libraries and collections such as the information tool WinwebWiki, the winweb food help and the ticket system for customer support were technically recalculated. It involves converting text into dense vectors, which are then stored in Datastax Astra's specialized vector database, enabling complex, context-sensitive searches across large datasets. Access is via a bespoke service developed with Python, Flask and Docker and, as a cloud service, can scale depending on the volume of requests. At the same time, the service serves as an interface: requests that come via the Winweb apps or from winweb-food are received, the vector database is then searched and the most relevant documents are delivered in real time. The AI then has access to all relevant documents to answer the user query. “The potential of this technology is enormous and opens up new opportunities to offer our customers the best possible service,” says Schummers.
About Winweb
As an owner-managed, medium-sized company, Winweb Informationstechnologie GmbH has been developing and selling industry-specific ERP software for the food industry for more than 25 years. The focus is on user-oriented innovations and short response times to individual industry requirements. Over 250 companies trust in the high level of specialization and solution expertise. The top level of satisfaction among Winweb customers is regularly confirmed in independent analyses. For further information: www.winweb.de
