Discovering Maya – FSOFT’s beloved AI assistant

Not only is Maya an AI assistant who is well-liked by many FSOFT employees globally, but the “Happiness Ambassador” initiative from FHO.HRPR has also recently won the Gold Award at the iKhiến 2024 Finals No. 3.

Sharing his feelings about winning the highest award in the recent finals, Mr. La Quang Vinh (HRPR.TMO) – the team’s representative, excitedly said: “We were absolutely ecstatic. Maya is a product that the team has been very passionate about and has dedicated a lot of effort to, from the conception of the idea to the implementation of the first features. This award is not only a huge recognition of our spiritual value but also motivates us to continue deploying and expanding the product.”

Maya is not merely a chatbot but also a pioneering product applying artificial intelligence (AI) in the Human Resources and Talent block. “The Gold Award at the iKhiến 2024 Finals No. 3 is proof of the development team’s correct strategy and direction,” the team representative affirmed.

The journey to building the first AI assistant

According to Mr. Vinh, Maya was formed from two main factors. Firstly, every day, many employees (especially new ones) need support in answering questions related to company policies, the working environment, and daily life. Not knowing who to ask or being too shy to ask has become a barrier. Moreover, with FSOFT’s global nature of work, the need for 24/7 support is enormous.

Secondly, the rapid development of AI technology has opened up many opportunities to support work. From there, the team has been determined to build Maya as an AI assistant that can support employees anytime, anywhere. In addition to the basic function of answering questions, Maya has been developed with many unique features, such as the Text2Tool feature – making the use of internal tools as simple as a chat line. Employees can quickly and efficiently check their number of days off, log leave requests, request late arrivals or early departures, or request assets, saving from 30% to 70% of effort compared to using conventional tools.

Looking back on the process of transforming the Maya idea into a complete product, the development team has applied the Agile model to implementation, dividing the project and ideas into many phases for gradual deployment, ensuring feasibility. This approach allows users to quickly experience the product (in stages) and provide feedback, rather than having to wait too long. Additionally, the team also has a basis for improving and perfecting the product during the project.

However, the development process was not always smooth. The team had to face many challenges such as incomplete input data and inconsistent support from stakeholders. But thanks to the team’s determination and effort, these difficulties were overcome.

Mr. Vinh further shared: “The biggest challenge lies not only in the development phase but also in how to make this initiative known, used, and maintain a stable number of users. To solve this problem, we have focused on two key points: content and community building. Content is not only documents or Q&A but also includes style, tone, and the way Maya interacts with each employee. At the same time, we have focused on building a Maya user community to retain users.”

One of the features that impressed the development team is the “Anonymous Truth” feature, which helps connect people. Talking about the process of building this feature, Mr. Vinh said that when implementing this feature, we received many interesting stories from employees. For example, someone used Maya to convey a “message” to their wife without feeling as… shy as when using other chat tools. Or there are colleagues in the project who have used this feature to send messages, praise, or criticism, both for project members and for their boss.

“These stories have motivated the development team to continue improving and introducing other useful features for Maya,” the Maya team representative enthusiastically shared.

Reducing the attrition rate to 3.4%

As of now, Maya has recorded up to 350,000 interactions and is used by 25,000 FSOFT employees globally. Maya has made a significant contribution to supporting and providing quick advice to employees, especially new ones.

One of Maya’s outstanding successes, according to Mr. La Quang Vinh, is its contribution to reducing the attrition rate of new employees from 12.4% in 2022 to 8.8% in 2023 and 3.4% as of July 2024. Additionally, Maya helps save up to 70% of the time spent completing internal tasks by integrating with internal tools and completing tasks in just one chat line.

Not only is Maya a companion for employees, but she is also a valuable assistant for leaders as she can quickly provide information about the attrition situation and send personalized alerts to leaders when key employees log leave requests. This has helped leaders take timely actions to retain employees. The employee retention rate has increased from 8% to 13.4% after only 6 months of deployment.

Participating in the iKhiến Finals No. 3, the Maya development team also received many questions and suggestions from the judges, the most prominent of which was the usage rate and how to maintain users. Mr. Vinh highly appreciated this concern: “A good product not only needs a large number of users but also needs a high number of interactions. To do that, maintaining users is extremely important. We have built Maya as a very friendly virtual employee, understanding the company culture and personalizing the communication style to suit each generation of users.”

With the current successes, the Maya development team still has many plans to implement to enhance the user experience and continue applying AI to internal activities. However, Mr. Vinh does not want to reveal too much about future plans to create surprises for the Maya user community.

When asked to evaluate the “iKhiến playground,” the Maya team representative highly appreciated the significance of the program and believed that it has become an important catalyst in spreading the innovative culture at FPT in general and FSOFT in particular. “Participating in iKhiến, the Maya development team has had the opportunity to receive multi-dimensional feedback, encouraging us to think bigger and prepare to face more complex challenges. From there, we have had the opportunity to step out of our comfort zone and aim to apply the idea on a larger scale,” said Mr. Vinh.

Telling a more specific story at FSOFT, Mr. Vinh said that the innovative culture is not just a slogan but has become an integral part of all activities in the unit. For the Maya development team, encouraging creative ideas is a top priority in the product development process. Ideas to improve work processes and increase productivity are always shared and recognized promptly. The team also organizes the Miss Brain program to seek out new and potential ideas to develop into new features for Maya.