CSE498, Collaborative Design, Fall 2018
Computer Science and Engineering
Michigan State University

With over a century of experience, Dow Chemical Company is changing the world through innovation by providing advancements like more drinkable water, more clean and affordable energy, and increasing food production.

Dow employs over 70,000 people worldwide, including some 30,000 of which are contractors. For many of them, information technology (IT) is central to their work. Providing IT support is crucial, but to do so for so many people in so many locations is a challenge.

Our IT Assistant is a chatbot that brings all of Dow’s IT knowledge to one place, providing a one-stop shop for resolving IT issues.

Our chatbot leverages natural language processing to engage with a Dow employee in a natural and intuitive way, handling both text and voice input.

When a user describes their IT problem, IT Assistant either provides a solution by searching Dow’s vast knowledge base of issues and solutions or it asks the user for more information.

IT Assistant is a responsive web app so it can be used with any web browser on a desktop or on any mobile device. And, since it’s web-based, it provides IT support at any time, from anywhere.

Our IT Assistant uses a variety of Microsoft Azure Cloud Services including LUIS and Voice Services. Our chatbot leverages Dow’s extensive IT knowledge base of issues and solutions. Hosted on Azure, IT Assistant is implemented using React.js and C#.