The Barcelona Provincial Council has developed a virtual assistant based on artificial intelligence that allows you to consult the Services Catalog using natural language. The solution helps local entities identify the resources and support lines most appropriate to their needs, in a faster, more intuitive and contextualized way.
The Barcelona Provincial Council's Service Catalogue contains a large volume of resources and support lines with multiple search criteria. This complexity makes it difficult to quickly locate the most appropriate resource, especially when the search is done through filters and manual navigation. To respond to this need, the Provincial Council has implemented a virtual assistant that interprets queries formulated in natural language, guides the conversation and helps to find the most relevant information in an agile and personalized way.
This solution is documented in theDigiCanvis Observatory as an innovative initiative of the local administration.
Com funciona?
The virtual assistant acts as a new gateway to the Services Catalog and allows queries to be made without the need to know the internal structure of the search engine or the technical criteria for classifying resources.
The operation of the solution is as follows:
- The user formulates their need in their own words.
- The assistant interprets the query and decides how to proceed: they can request more information, search the Catalog or access a specific resource directly.
- The system identifies the potentially most appropriate resources and generates a contextualized response with useful links and directions.
- The conversation maintains the context of previous queries, allowing you to continue interacting naturally.
- Conversations can be shared via a URL link.
The solution combines artificial intelligence techniques and semantic search to interpret queries in natural language and offer contextualized answers adapted to each need.
What are the benefits?
- Improved efficiency. Reduces the time needed to identify resources and lines of support appropriate to each municipal need.
- Better user experience. Allows interaction with the Catalog using natural language, without the need to know the structure or classification criteria.
- Increase of the transparènciaIt facilitates the discovery of available services and makes the public information available in the Services Catalog more understandable thanks to contextualized, comparative answers and summary tables.
The virtual assistant has been in operation since November 2025. The development of the solution has been carried out entirely with the Barcelona Provincial Council's own teams following an iterative process based on proof of concept, testing sessions with end users and continuous improvement, both functional and technological.
You can learn about the key aspects to implement this initiative in the sheet Virtual assistant of the Barcelona Provincial Council's Service Catalogue of the DigiCanvis Observatory.
