Montgomery County revolutionizes constituent experiences with an AI chatbot powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service

Montgomery County wanted to help its constituents more conveniently access important local information, but its existing AI chatbot, Monty, was limited in both scale and accessibility.

Montgomery County worked with Microsoft and Zammo.ai to expand its chatbot using Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service. Over 10 months, they developed Monty 2.0, which is capable of multi-turn conversations on 3,000 topics in 140 languages.

Launched in late 2024, Monty 2.0 has facilitated 20,000 constituent conversations, achieving a customer satisfaction rate of 50%. Now, Montgomery County constituents have personalized, instant access to topics about public services.

Montgomery County, Maryland, wanted to offer more accessible and convenient services to its constituents. The county is dedicated to leading the charge in revolutionizing public service with cutting-edge AI technology, so, in 2024, it used Microsoft Azure to expand its AI chatbot and promote accessibility and convenience.

Harnessing AI to enhance services for more than 1 million Montgomery County constituents

The government of Montgomery County—located just outside Washington, DC, and the most populous county in the US state of Maryland—is dedicated to fostering equity, inclusivity, and opportunity for its more than 1 million constituents. For more than two decades, the county has harnessed innovative technology to provide public services, such as transportation, infrastructure maintenance, and waste removal, and support safety, education, and climate action. “Our strategy is wrapped around this idea of serving our internal employees so that they can then serve our constituents better,” says Shayna Taqi, Chief Change Officer at Montgomery County. Montgomery County’s technology-first approach to public services has earned multiple awards over two decades, including a Top Digital County award and a Tech Savvy designation.

During COVID-19, Montgomery County faced an influx of vaccine and other pandemic-related inquiries, which strained its 311 hotline and call center. To alleviate this, the county launched Monty, an AI chatbot, to bolster its 311 services. The solution, built in five days with technical support from Microsoft partner Zammo.ai, an independent software vendor, reduced call center wait times and helped agents focus on the most complex questions. However, the chatbot only covered 20 topics, and usage declined as vaccines became more readily available, leading to Monty’s retirement.

This experience highlighted the transformative potential of generative AI for enhancing the constituent experience. Recognizing that expanding Monty's capabilities to cover more than 3,000 topics would significantly improve constituent services, the county decided to move forward despite challenges and concerns around AI hallucinating—presenting false or misleading information as fact. To address these issues, Montgomery County partnered with Microsoft and Zammo.ai to develop Monty 2.0, a generative AI solution capable of maintaining context in conversations.

“We often rely on things to be perfect to be able to present them to the public,” says Skyler Grubbs, Change Management Manager at Montgomery County. “Our team, throughout this exercise, has really done a good job of not promising perfection and instead promising continuous improvement alongside learning with our constituents and testing with them.”

“We often rely on things to be perfect to be able to present them to the public. Our team, throughout this exercise, has really done a good job of not promising perfection and instead promising continuous improvement alongside learning with our constituents and testing with them.”

Skyler Grubbs, Change Management Manager, Montgomery County

Using generative AI to answer questions about 3,000 topics in 140 languages

Over the course of 10 months, Montgomery County expanded its use of the Zammo.ai software to build the expanded Monty 2.0 chatbot using Azure OpenAI Service, which helps developers create custom generative AI solutions. This updated model uses Azure AI Search, which delivers a knowledge retrieval system built for advanced retrieval augmented generation. It instantly and exclusively accesses Montgomery County’s knowledge base and selects relevant content to respond to queries without sourcing misleading information from the internet. Monty 2.0 also harnesses Zammo.ai’s software as a service solution to boost the front-end user experience through automatic translation into 140 languages and improved multi-turn conversations.

Before deploying Monty 2.0 to the public, the IT team worked closely with Microsoft and the Zammo.ai customer success team to meticulously develop the model’s new framework and reduce hallucinations. During a seven-month beta phase that began in March 2024, the team collected feedback from a constituent focus group and made improvements to the knowledge base and architecture. Montgomery County also focused on training employees to use generative AI safely and effectively. “As a government organization, we need to be very careful about what information we’re putting out to the public,” says Michael Zanfardino, Change Management Specialist at Montgomery County. “When we finally reduced the hallucinations, I knew we had gold—a good product that would really help our constituents.”

“It was amazing to see how, even though we weren’t formally trained in this, we could rally together to learn, take risks, listen, and iterate. It wouldn’t have been possible without the strong partnerships we have with Microsoft and Zammo.ai.”

Skyler Grubbs, Change Management Manager, Montgomery County

When Monty 2.0 fully launched in late 2024, it supported more than 3,000 topics—a hundredfold increase from the previous iteration. The chatbot now provides public health guidelines, emergency notifications, and information about local services and regulations—all in the language that is most comfortable for each constituent. And because the model was trained on Montgomery County’s geographic information system, Monty 2.0 can even provide personalized responses based on a user’s address, such as trash pickup days and local voting precincts.

Since its beta deployment, Monty 2.0 has facilitated more than 20,000 constituent conversations, achieving a 50% customer satisfaction rate and reducing unanswered queries from 35%–45% to just 10%–15%. The chatbot's services continue to improve based on learnings from the Zammo.ai conversation analytics and click-to-add constituent feedback, such as thumbs-up and one- to five-star ratings, in the conversational experiences. Now, the IT team consistently makes enhancements to Monty 2.0’s prompts and modeling. The chatbot has received several positive reviews, with one constituent sharing that Monty 2.0 was “quick, accurate, and gave me exactly the information I needed to report a downed tree.”

“We wanted to get our constituents’ stamp of approval before we went live, and we want to continue collecting and evaluating their feedback on a daily basis,” says Grubbs. “We’re giving people the opportunity to tell us what their experience with Monty 2.0 is like and how they would like to see it change.”

“We generated so much excitement around this project that we have many departments asking for their own chatbots. We’re excited to see how we can use similar technology to improve some of our customer service areas. The better customer service we can provide, the more successful we are.”

Shayna Taqi, Chief Change Officer, Montgomery County

Scaling AI services across Montgomery County

Montgomery County’s bold leadership in generative AI has greatly enhanced the experience of its constituents and employees. By working side by side with Microsoft and Zammo.ai, Montgomery County’s IT team also expanded its AI knowledge, which will empower future innovations. “It was amazing to see how, even though we weren’t formally trained in this, we could rally together to learn, take risks, listen, and iterate,” says Grubbs. “It wouldn’t have been possible without the strong partnerships we have with Microsoft and Zammo.ai.”

Moving forward, Montgomery County plans to expand its omnichannel AI strategy, broaden customer service topic areas, and deploy Monty 2.0 in other areas of the county’s website. These improvements will drive internal efficiency and enhance the support Montgomery County provides to its constituents. Thanks to its positive experience with building and rolling out Monty 2.0, the county expects several more departments to welcome the adoption of AI models across the organization.

“We generated so much excitement around this project that we have many departments asking for their own chatbots,” says Taqi. “We’re excited to see how we can use similar technology to improve some of our customer service areas. The better customer service we can provide, the more successful we are.”

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