{"id":3555,"date":"2024-10-25T11:01:33","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T18:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/semantic-kernel\/?p=3555"},"modified":"2025-01-16T11:00:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T19:00:06","slug":"ai-digital-transformation-discovering-romes-hidden-treasures-with-an-ai-virtual-assistant-and-semantic-kernel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/ai-digital-transformation-discovering-romes-hidden-treasures-with-an-ai-virtual-assistant-and-semantic-kernel\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Digital Transformation Discovering Rome\u2019s hidden treasures with an AI virtual assistant and Semantic Kernel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today we want to highlight a customer story featuring Semantic Kernel here: <a href=\"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/source\/emea\/features\/discovering-romes-hidden-treasures-with-an-ai-virtual-assistant\/\">Discovering Rome\u2019s hidden treasures with an AI virtual assistant &#8211; Source EMEA<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Meet Julia: The AI Assistant Transforming Travel in Rome\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/B1WmXAb96Gc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>On a sunny Monday morning in late September, a river of travelers flowed slowly through the Piazza della Rotonda. The focal point of the piazza is the Pantheon, the nearly 2,000- year-old temple to all the Roman gods, and is one of the city\u2019s most popular landmarks.<\/p>\n<p>Fronted by imposing rows of Corinthian columns, it merits the attention it draws. Nearly every visitor slowed down for a photo or selfie, vainly attempting to capture its perfect proportion in pixels.<\/p>\n<p>Antonio Preiti, himself a citizen of Rome, was also using his smartphone in front of the Pantheon. He opened a conversation with a simple question: Is there a quiet, historic place nearby where we can have lunch?<\/p>\n<p>A virtual tour guide named Julia, commissioned by the city of Rome and powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service using GPT-4o, responded that the Piazza Mattei, also known as the Turtle Square, was just 15 minutes away on foot. There we would find another place typical of Rome, with layers that traverse thousands of years. Preiti and two companions set off, following Julia\u2019s directions.<\/p>\n<p>The AI virtual assistant is the brainchild of Preiti and the government of Rome, which is preparing to greet as many as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/257721\/here-s-how-the-city-of-rome-is-preparing-for-the-2025-jubilee-year\">35 million extra visitors in 2025<\/a>\u00a0for the celebration of the Catholic Jubilee. The name Julia was chosen, Preiti says, \u201cbecause it is short, fairly common across many languages and it has a deep connection to Rome and its history. Julia is a typically Roman name: Julius Caesar\u2019s daughter was named Giulia, Augustus\u2019s daughter was named Giulia, and one of the oldest families in Rome had the Latin name \u2018gens Julia\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Working with Microsoft and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nttdata.com\/global\/en\/\">NTT DATA<\/a>, a global provider of business and technology services, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.intellera.com\/\">Intellera<\/a>, a consulting company in the Accenture Group, the city hopes that Julia will create a quiet revolution in how visitors experience the city. By equipping travelers with a trusted guide, the city wants to enrich their experiences beyond the typical tourist circuit, all while easing congestion around the most popular sites.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/source\/emea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/RomeTouristVirtualAssistant-11-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"The Roman Forum, with the Colosseum in the background, as seen from Rome\u2019s city hall. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Helping Travelers discover more of Rome<\/h3>\n<p>Within a few minutes of walking away from the Pantheon with Preiti, the crowd receded, the streets narrowed, and the conversation flowed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe solution in my opinion, is a solution by information,\u201d says Preiti. \u201cWhen I heard about generative AI, I thought this is a way to help create a balance, to let people know about not just the iconic places, but the other places Rome has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Preiti is an economist who has focused much of his research and thought on tourism and travel. He was the director of tourism for the city of Florence for five years, and now the mayor of Rome has appointed him the CEO of a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.comune.roma.it\/web\/it\/notizia.page?contentId=NWS1069084#:~:text=Nasce%20la%20Fondazione%20per%20l%E2%80%99attrazione%20di%20Roma.%20Obiettivo:\">commission designated to address tourism<\/a>\u00a0in Italy\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p>He has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/antoniopreiti.it\/articoli\">written often<\/a>\u00a0about overtourism and the \u201cclick bait\u201d approach of the Internet. That type of strategy, he says, reinforces crowd pressure on well-known attractions such as the Pantheon, the Colosseum and the Vatican, the latter of which will be at the heart of the Jubilee.<\/p>\n<p>That data, ready to be shared by the virtual assistant via a web app or WhatsApp, is a vast library of certified information about the city\u2019s history, monuments, museums, hotels, restaurants, entertainment possibilities and more.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of always getting the most popular answer at the top of the search list, tourists who converse with Julia will get answers based on their questions, not algorithms based on popularity. In this way, they will be exposed to things they otherwise might not, Preiti says.<\/p>\n<p>He cites the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/nudge-theory-what-15-years-of-research-tells-us-about-its-promises-and-politics-210534\">\u201cNudge Theory\u201d<\/a>\u00a0of behavior. In this approach, small actions, such as putting fruit instead of desserts at eye level in a cafeteria, have the potential to create large changes in the choices people make. The city hopes that will mean more travelers at less-visited sites and fewer travelers at well-worn favorites.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/source\/emea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Gif2.gif\" \/><\/p>\n<section class=\" mssrc-block-content-block\">\n<div id=\"block-671a78efb0466\" class=\"mask | bg:inherit | c:#000 | p-y:2vr | p-y:50px@m \">\n<div class=\"max-w:1700px m-x:auto w:fit flex items:center just:between p-x:94fxx _p-l:327fxx _p-r:337fxx d:block@m p-x:6.25%@m\">\n<h3>Rome\u2019s own dataset<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"mssrc-block-content-block\">\n<div class=\" rel p-y:2vr p-t:50px@m \">\n<div class=\" w:1152fxx m-x:auto font-t1 w:fit@m p-x:6.25%@m | mks-wysiwyg\">\n<p>To that end, NTT DATA and the city of Rome have been working together to build a dataset from both official and vetted sources, he said. Because many tourist businesses name themselves with an eye on \u201cclick bait,\u201d not everything labeled with the word Colosseum pertains directly to the monument, for example.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-10029\" src=\"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/source\/emea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Gif3.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"787\" height=\"443\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Camilla Giacometti is an innovation analyst whose job is to work with Julia, the virtual assistant, from a conversational point of view. NTT DATA has a specialized department for digital linguistics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy job is to make the digital assistant more engaging, more human,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cSo my role is basically to work on the interaction between the travelers and the assistant.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The virtual assistant application relies on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/semantic-kernel\/overview\/\">Semantic Kernel<\/a>, an open-source development kit created by Microsoft, Giacometti\u00a0explains. It enables developers to build AI agents focused on\u00a0different topics. \u201cFor example, there is the agent specialized on finding information about accommodation, or there is the agent specializing in providing information about transportation or culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She says NTT DATA leverages a full suite of Microsoft products to develop and maintain Julia.\u00a0 The company uses\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/microsoft-fabric\">Microsoft Fabric<\/a>, an end-to-end analytics and data platform designed to unify various data-related tasks and tools into a single, cohesive environment. \u201cThen we have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/azure\/search\/search-what-is-azure-search\">Azure AI Search<\/a>\u00a0for semantic search, so we can provide the relevant information with the service,\u201d she adds. This is part of the process that ensures that travelers get relevant and precise answers based on their questions.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of privacy, NTT DATA will gather the content of conversations with Julia for monitoring and improvement purposes, but the data goes through a cleaning process that removes personal data if it is detected. It is also protected using Azure AI Content Safety, an AI service that detects harmful user-generated and AI-generated content in applications and services.<\/p>\n<p>Giacometti, who is based in Naples, says she\u2019s proud to be a part of Julia\u2019s trajectory: The virtual assistant is expected to be officially made available to the public in December; the 2025 Jubilee starts January 1.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we want to highlight a customer story featuring Semantic Kernel here: Discovering Rome\u2019s hidden treasures with an AI virtual assistant &#8211; Source EMEA On a sunny Monday morning in late September, a river of travelers flowed slowly through the Piazza della Rotonda. The focal point of the piazza is the Pantheon, the nearly 2,000- [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149071,"featured_media":3563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[48,63,9],"class_list":["post-3555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-story","tag-ai","tag-microsoft-semantic-kernel","tag-semantic-kernel"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>Today we want to highlight a customer story featuring Semantic Kernel here: Discovering Rome\u2019s hidden treasures with an AI virtual assistant &#8211; Source EMEA On a sunny Monday morning in late September, a river of travelers flowed slowly through the Piazza della Rotonda. The focal point of the piazza is the Pantheon, the nearly 2,000- [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149071"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/agent-framework\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}