I'm working on a project for a travel agency that wants to integrate an AI chatbot on their website. The chatbot should assist users by answering questions and handling travel bookings. Since the chatbot will be public-facing, ensuring accurate, hallucination-free responses is a priority, and I think Azure AI services could be a good fit due to their built-in moderation features. However, I'm uncertain about the specifics of using Azure for this project. I would love to hear about your experiences with building AI-powered applications using Azure. Which services did you use, and how did you manage the costs involved?
5 Answers
Honestly, it's surprising that travel agents are leaning into chatbots. I mean, one of their main selling points is the personal touch they offer. Isn't that a bit counterproductive?
You might want to start with Microsoft Foundry and utilize its tools for your chatbot project. It's designed for building AI applications easily.
If they’re already on Azure, leveraging Azure Models would make sense. But I suggest skipping Foundry’s agent tools for more robust frameworks like Langgraph or Google ADK. Remember to treat the development process like software engineering—testing, evaluation, and monitoring are crucial. I recommend using DeepEval for evaluation purposes; Microsoft's evaluation libraries aren't great. If safety is a concern, you might want to look into Anthropic as an alternative and consider using popular databases like Postgres or Pinecone for grounding your chatbot.
For answering queries, it sounds like you should anchor your chatbot to the agency's internal knowledge base. Using something like Copilot Studio linked to their SharePoint could work well. You'll likely need to create custom integration tools for the booking systems too, so think through how to incorporate human oversight where necessary. Start small with a proof of concept focused on their key information, then gradually add complexity and tools.
Azure offers some solid options for your needs. Check out their AI webpage for services tailored to chatbots. You could also consider Microsoft 365 Copilot Studio for building your bot. It streamlines the process and can be quite effective.
Thanks for the suggestion, that sounds helpful!