The Belgian public railway company NMBS/SNCB is launching Mobi 2.0, its updated AI chatbot. The virtual assistant is designed to help train passengers with questions about their journey 24/7.

According to NMBS/SNCB, the revamped virtual assistant answers 90% of all questions correctly. The railway company says that it is one of the first large-scale GenAI applications in Belgium within the public service sector.

Four languages

The first version of Mobi, the chatbot NMBS/SNCB has used since 2020, handled around 300,000 conversations per month. However, it only answered 65% of all questions correctly.

The spelling mistakes, longer sentences, and complex formulations that were not detected in the earlier version are now correctly recognized by Mobi 2.0. “Thanks to generative AI, the conversations are much more natural, less scripted, and more in line with the way travelers really communicate,” says the NMBS/SNCB. The answers you receive are available in four languages: Dutch, French, German, and English.

Less pressure on customer service

According to NMBS/SCNB, expanding the chatbot should ease pressure on customer service and ensure faster responses to urgent passenger questions. If a question is too complex or requires a personal approach, Mobi 2.0 automatically switches to an NMBS/SNCB employee.

The chatbot provides information about possible train routes for domestic travel, train tickets, and delays, among other things. For international NMBS travel, the chatbot still must refer customers to other services.

In other words, Mobi 2.0. should receive fewer emotional reactions, such as 😤 “Why doesn’t it understand me?” and more 😐 “Okay, useful.”

However, there is also a good chance it will face significant frustration from stranded passengers in the event of strikes or delays, even though the tool has multiple layers of security against incorrect or inappropriate language use.