YoungWilliams cuts call center response time 99% with Azure AI Foundry Agent Service

High call center turnover, complex inquiries, and growing security risks slow government service delivery. YoungWilliams needed an AI solution to improve its efficiency, advance service quality, and help ensure compliance.

Citing trusted security and compliance, YoungWilliams chose Microsoft Azure AI Foundry Agent Service and Azure AI Foundry Models to empower Priya to automate, secure, and improve customer service interactions.

Priya delivers 99% faster responses and 45% more empathetic interactions, improving citizen experiences and customer service representative productivity while securing sensitive data and streamlining government operations.

YoungWilliams has been a trusted ally to health and human services organizations since 1993, bringing decades of expertise in streamlining processes, improving operational efficiency, and delivering empathetic, personalized support to individuals and families.

Today, government agencies face mounting challenges: high call center staff turnover, increasingly complex inquiries, and rising security risks around personal data. These hurdles demand innovative solutions that balance efficiency, compliance, and customer satisfaction.

Confronted with these growing challenges, YoungWilliams recognized that traditional solutions were no longer enough. To keep pace with increasing service demands while maintaining compliance, the company needed a scalable, AI-driven solution capable of managing high inquiry volumes while helping to ensure better compliance, accuracy, and security.

Rob Wells, Chief Executive Officer at YoungWilliams, underscores the urgency of this transformation: “AI is no longer just an option—it’s essential. The complexity of modern government services demands solutions that can adapt, learn, and deliver results efficiently.”

YoungWilliams uses Azure AI–powered technology to enrich government services

YoungWilliams sought to improve its call center efficiency through AI. The company chose Microsoft because it was the best option to power an intelligent AI agent that could automate responses, enhance customer service, and strengthen its data protection. Azure AI Foundry Agent Service and Azure AI Foundry Models within Azure AI Foundry were ideal for their ability to tie seamlessly into YoungWilliams’s existing infrastructure, providing the scalability and security needed to handle high inquiry volumes while helping ensure compliance and accuracy.

The AI agent, named Priya in honor of a Microsoft employee who spearheaded much of its development, embodies the collaboration between YoungWilliams and Microsoft. More than just a virtual agent, Priya helps government agencies deliver services faster and more accurately while maintaining a personal connection with citizens.

Rick Broxterman, Director of Emerging Technologies at YoungWilliams, explains, “With Priya, we’re not just improving customer service—we’re reimagining it. Using Azure AI Foundry Agent Service, we’re able to make Priya more intuitive and proactive, delivering personalized support while maintaining the highest security and compliance standards.

“With Priya, we’re not just improving customer service—we’re reimagining it. Using Azure AI Foundry Agent Service, we’re able to make Priya more intuitive and proactive, delivering personalized support while maintaining the highest security and compliance standards.”

Rick Broxterman, Director of Emerging Technologies, YoungWilliams

Priya has fundamentally overhauled service delivery, assisting with child support services, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Summer EBT inquiries while also supporting customer service representatives (CSRs) by retrieving information, summarizing case details, and clarifying policies. Its built-in compliance measures reduce errors and enhance security, maintaining highly protected customer data.

A streamlined chat interface empowers users to swiftly navigate assistance with clarity, reducing confusion and delays. The following image illustrates a smartphone screen where Priya provides detailed, easy-to-follow responses to critical SNAP questions. Topics range from benefit applications and eligibility changes to reapply processes and wait times, and users receive precise guidance at every step.

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The decision to collaborate with Microsoft was strategic. YoungWilliams needed a platform that could tie seamlessly into its existing infrastructure while providing flexibility to scale, enabling Priya to evolve alongside government service needs.

Priya gains empathy, scale, security, and analysis with Azure AI Foundry Models

To support government agencies broadly, YoungWilliams’s development team had to establish Priya to be not only fast and more secure, but also capable of engaging with citizens in a natural, supportive way. To achieve its development vision and address the complex needs of government agencies, Priya needed to understand user intent, ask clarifying questions, and adapt responses based on sentiment and policy rules.

Broxterman explains, “Priya doesn’t just automate responses—it refines its understanding with every interaction, making government services more efficient and accessible. By integrating AI in a way that prioritizes both accuracy and empathy, we’re creating a better experience for citizens while improving efficiency for customer service representatives.”

To achieve this, YoungWilliams built Priya on Azure AI Foundry Agent Service, using its end-to-end AI governance, modular API-centric platform, and centralized resource management to help establish both scalability and security. The company also uses Microsoft Power BI on Azure for analytics to deliver real-time customer feedback analysis. A simple thumbs-up/down feature gathers insights used to assess sentiment and refine Priya’s interactions.

Additional key capabilities that support analysis and security include:

Real-world data access: Priya retrieves and processes live government data sources to validate that its responses are accurate and up-to-date, using Azure AI Search and Bing Search.

Context-aware conversations: Rather than making assumptions, Priya asks clarifying questions to refine answers and help ensure accuracy.

Empathy-driven interactions: Using the latest GPT-series model of Azure AI Foundry Models, Priya recognizes sentiment and adjusts tone based on user interactions.

Security and compliance first: Priya enforces role-based access control (RBAC) to help protect sensitive government data while permitting only authorized users access key information.

Seamless AI adaptation: Priya automatically references tools and knowledge bases in real time to deliver relevant, policy-compliant responses efficiently.

This platform centralizes data from diverse sources, enforces compliance across all layers, and seamlessly connects with user interfaces to deliver highly secure, scalable AI solutions.

“Azure AI Foundry Agent Service gave us the scale and security we needed to transform government interactions.”

John Tidwell, Chief Technology Officer, YoungWilliams

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YoungWilliams’s development team also employed the developer toolchain in Azure AI Foundry Agent Service—including search, customization, evaluation, and experimentation tools—to fine-tune Priya’s responses and provide real-time adaptability.

With the interoperability of Azure AI Foundry Agent Service and Azure AI Foundry Models within Azure AI Foundry, YoungWilliams ensured Priya seamlessly assimilated with existing infrastructure, providing the scalability and security needed to handle high inquiry volumes while maintaining compliance and accuracy. This unified approach empowered the company to address concerns around deployment complexity, data governance, and operational overhead by providing a secure, manageable, and scalable AI solution for modern government services.

Priya improves customer service metrics across the board

The impact has been clear. Priya was 99% faster in initial response time and delivered 45% more empathetic interactions, improving citizen experiences and customer service representative productivity while helping to secure sensitive data and streamline government operations. In recent evaluations, Priya consistently outperformed human CSRs across key performance metrics:

41% higher customer satisfaction

Greater social graces and empathy – 4.75 (Priya) vs. 3.29 (CSR)

Faster initial responses – 3 sec. average (Priya) vs. 3.95 min. (CSR)

Priya manages thousands of simultaneous inquiries with minimal latency. By using Azure OpenAI in Azure AI Foundry Models, YoungWilliams optimized query handling, reducing response times from almost four minutes to about three seconds.

To continuously refine Priya’s performance, YoungWilliams deployed Power BI on Azure dashboards to track real-time AI performance and user feedback to help ensure the system learns and improves over time. “Azure AI Foundry Agent Service gave us the scale and security we needed to transform government interactions,” says John Tidwell, Chief Technology Officer.

“By combining AI-driven automation and secure, real-time data access, Priya empowers agencies to deliver faster, smarter, and more empathetic citizen interactions without many of the problems inherent in today’s customer service solutions.”

Rob Wells, Chief Executive Officer, YoungWilliams

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YoungWilliams’s blueprint for modern government services

The use of Azure AI Foundry Agent Service in Priya marks a major step forward in government service delivery. Using AI-driven automation, YoungWilliams is enhancing efficiency, security, and accessibility, making services more responsive to customers. AI automation also empowers government employees to automate routine tasks, enhance decision-making, and improve service responsiveness.

As Priya continues to evolve, its round-the-clock availability, along with its ability to ask clarifying questions and provide more secure access to real-time data, will further transform how agencies engage with citizens. This innovation is about more than automation—it’s about redefining government interactions to be faster, smarter, and more user-friendly. YoungWilliams also sees potential for expanding AI-driven solutions beyond call centers to support additional government services, further increasing efficiency across agencies.

Wells concludes, “With Priya, built on Azure AI Foundry Agent Service and Azure AI Foundry Models, we’re not just keeping up—we’re embarking on a path of redefining the future of government services. By combining AI-driven automation and secure, real-time data access, Priya empowers agencies to deliver faster, smarter, and more empathetic citizen interactions without many of the problems inherent in today’s customer service solutions.”

Discover more about YoungWilliams on LinkedIn.