Australian Red Cross has rolled out a series of AI use cases following the completion of its foundational “digital spine”.
The not-for-profit organisation has spent the past 18 months consolidating its infrastructure into six core systems, as well as achieving new data maturity and governance models.
Off the back of that, Red Cross CIO Brett Wilson said his team had built a new AI-powered transcription and translation system using Azure Cognitive Services.
Speaking during Gartner Symposium in the Gold Coast, Wilson said the organisation has to transcribe and translate 600 audio files every day.
“Within that conversation, you could have several different languages,” he said.
“Before, it was something we needed to externally send out and it would come back in batches over two weeks.
“As a conservative estimate, we’ve saved about 90 days of waiting time just for those files to come back and 150 hours of administrative time. It’s over half a year of time we have saved.”
That saving was achieved within the first fortnight of the tool’s use.
Alongside this, Wilson unveiled Red Cross’ new API tool for Auslan translation in its emergency videos using an AI-trained avatar.
Built in partnership with Kara Tech, Wilson said the tool replaces the need for Red Cross to find Auslan translators when delivering short video messages during an emergency situation.
Lastly, Red Cross has released an internal natural language processing bot, which is provisionally named ‘Ted’ after the organisation’s signature trauma teddy.
The bot, which still is awaiting an official name, provides information to Red Cross employees and enables access to certain tools and capabilities.
“Ted can provision something like software,” Wilson said. “You can ask it a question; it will then connect to the system and provision that software.
“Ted will grow into that single source of information across Red Cross as we mature and connect to other systems, such as HR.
According to Wilson, the bot is likely to save 1.3 million hours of waiting time for Red Cross employees.
110 years of legacy
Earlier this year, Wilson revealed the progress of Red Cross’ full foundational digital transformation which covered finance, CRM, marketing automation, core HRIS, an enterprise risk platform and enterprise data platform.
Known as its “digital spine”, the new model saw Red Cross deliver six core platforms “in parallel” over the space of 12 months.
Speaking about the transformation, Wilson said the organisation was challenged to re-orchestrate “110 years of worth of legacy”.
“We’re a big messy entity,” he said. “Probably the best way to explain it is that we are a number of industries run underneath Red Cross.”
The transformation saw Red Cross deploy Dynamics 365 for its CRM, finance and marketing automation, and Dayforce for its HRIS.
It also opted for Microsoft Purview to underpin its enterprise data platform.
“During the transformation, we migrated 6000 records just for CRM alone,” he said.
“We did over 6000 hours of training, and it was all compressed into that 12-month delivery time.”
However, there is still work to be done.
“We still have 250 other applications out there that we’re trying to rationalise,” Wilson said. “My favourite is the DOS machine in Tasmania running Meals on Wheels. Nobody is allowed to touch it because we can’t actually fix it if something happens to it.”
Following the construction of its digital spine, Red Cross began focusing on maturing its data management and governance in anticipation of building out the new AI use cases.
In particular, the organisation sought to create a body of structured data and “align data governance with strategic governance”.
“As we increase our cloud migration out to external environments, we’re increasing where the data sits,” Wilson said.
“Without the right foundations in place, you can’t use AI effectively because you’re relying on data that’s going to cause you a problem when it outputs.”
Eleanor Dickinson attended the Gartner Symposium as a guest of Gartner.