Website’s ‘virtual assistant’ provides answers in 95 languages

Europa Uomo has incorporated a “chatbot”, or virtual assistant, into its website which can answer questions about the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer.

Chatbots are computer programmes which use artificial intelligence to simulate human texted conversations, using simple conversational language. Many commercial websites use them to answer simple customer queries, but Europa Uomo’s breaks new ground in the field of cancer. Produced in collaboration with Swedish AI company Devinncoo, the chatbot has been “trained” in answering questions about prostate cancer.

It can hold conversations in 95 languages – automatically converting to the language that the enquirer types in.

You can use the chatbot by clicking on the blue speech bubble icon at the bottom right of every page on the Europa Uomo website.

“This is a new way for anyone to get reliable information about prostate cancer in their own language,” says Guenther Carl, Europa Uomo Chairman. “It in no way replaces medical advice, but it can provide valuable information that can help men make important decisions – for example about testing and treatment.”

“We will develop the chatbot and give it more reference material to work from. So we want people to try it out and let us know what they think. We can make changes to make it more user-friendly.”

You can find out further information about how to use the chatbot here. Please send any comments to info@europa-uomo.org.