The Department of Trade and Industry’s Assistant Secretary and Head of Digital Philippines Mary Jean Pacheco and Proto’s CEO Curtis Matlock signed the agreement to deploy Proto’s AI Citizen Experience (AICX) chatbot to support businesses and Filipinos across the multilingual country.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in the Philippines is responsible for supporting business growth and consumer welfare across seven agencies, ranging from consumer protection to industry development to trade promotion. Everyday, these agencies handle thousands of queries, tickets, and complaints with a manual contact centre that faces inefficiencies and repetitive tasks.
DTI’s chatbot, known as TIA (Trade & Industry Assistant), answers queries in English, Tagalog, and Cebuano, and assists with topics such as business licenses and accreditation, consumer complaint processing, and investor trade agreements. TIA provides support across Webchat, Facebook, and SMS channels for the widest possible citizen outreach.
During the soft-launch phase, TIA automated queries that the DTI previously had to address over email – freeing up human agents to focus on higher-level tasks, and reducing administrative hassle and response times.
The Proto chatbot also allows DTI to automatically comply with the Philippine government’s No Wrong Door policy for citizens – meaning cases should always be forwarded to the correct government agency to save citizens from getting lost and frustrated. Proto’s deployments across government agencies in the Philippines, such as DTI, the Central Bank of the Philippines, and the Securities & Exchange Commission will enable the Filipino government to ensure the No Wrong Door policy with a central platform behind these chatbots.
Proto’s CEO Curtis Matlock said: “It is an honour for the deployment of the TIA chatbot to be the culminating activity of the Department of Trade and Industry’s celebration of Consumer Welfare Month in October. With a growing number of government agencies in the Philippines using this Proto platform, there are exciting opportunities for integrated, digital citizen engagement and protection.”
Department of Trade and Industry’s Assistant Secretary and Head of Digital Philippines Mary Jean Pacheco said: “The Department of Trade and Industry is constantly innovating – looking at ways to deliver better services to the public, from Business Number registration in 8 minutes to Barangay Micro Business Enterprise online registration and now Trade and Industry Assistant (TIA), the DTI Chatbot. TIA is built to speak the language of DTI's customers, understand their needs, and provide them with an immediate response accordingly. Over time, TIA is also fed with new information using different local dialects such as Tagalog and Cebuano, enabling the chatbot to entertain more queries from DTI's customers."
Website: https://www.proto.cx/
Contact: Jennifer Dantoc, Asia Director
E-mail: jennifer@proto.cx
About Proto
Proto is the leader for multilingual contact center automation in emerging markets. Proto’s AI Citizen Experience (AICX) platform is powered by proprietary natural language processing (NLP) for under-resourced and rare languages. Proto's novel deep-learning techniques and regulatory partnerships maximise customer engagement, protection, and lifetime value.
About The Department of Trade and Industry
The Department of Trade and Industry is the executive department of the Philippines government responsible for business and trade innovation, growth, and consumer protection. The department consists of six functional groups that collaborate to deliver services to businesses and the public, and facilitate policymaking to further business development across the Philippines.
