Say hello to Billie: Our generative AI companion
September 3, 2024
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At CannonDesign, we’re all about sparking innovation and turning new ideas into reality. The launch of Billie, our generative AI companion, is a testament to that drive and our commitment to leading the way in technology and design.
Billie is an internal tool that leverages advanced technologies, including ChatGPT, to effortlessly search, retrieve and summarize essential documents and data within our firm. By pulling information directly from our internal systems, Billie has transformed how we access and utilize CannonDesign’s vast knowledge base. Instead of spending time sifting through systems to find what we need, we simply ask Billie, and the information is at our fingertips.
The birth of Billie
Billie was born out of an AI Hackathon we hosted last November, where AI enthusiasts from across CannonDesign gathered in Chicago for a two-day event. The focus was clear: uncover opportunities to harness AI’s potential across our firm. Participants pitched ideas, formed teams and spent two intense days collaborating, innovating and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Billie, named in honor of our firm’s founder, William Cannon Sr., emerged as the winning concept, capturing the imagination and excitement of the entire group.
Bringing Billie to life
Since the hackathon, a multidisciplinary team consisting of teammates from our design, Digital Products and Brand, Marketing and Business Development teams have been hard at work bringing Billie to life. One of the key steps was to create a powerful SQL companion capable of answering complex queries like, "How many active employees do we have?" or "Which three employees have the most LEED project experience?" In real-time, Billie interprets user questions, searches our data warehouse, aggregates relevant data and provides precise answers with real-world sources.
Beyond the technical requirements of Billie, our team also crafted a dynamic user experience (UX) and interface (UI) for the tool. Following extensive user testing and refinement, we successfully launched Billie firm-wide earlier this month.
Just as exciting as the launch, the current adoption and usage of Billie is exceeding initial projections and expectations.
And we’re not done. Right now, the team is developing several custom enhancements that will give Billie the power to go beyond simple queries. We’ll be able to upload select datasets, enabling Billie to generate responses from new information and create new content with a consistent voice aligned with our brand standards. Initial testing with CannonDesign-specific data has set the stage for exciting capabilities.
While Billie is designed for internal use by CannonDesign employees (hey, we’re hiring if you’re interested in joining us and having Billie as a companion), it exemplifies the strategic investments we’re making to bring our "Dream it and Do it Technology" philosophy to life. Over the past year, we've strengthened our capabilities with dedicated experts in data science and visualization, smart buildings, product development, software engineering, immersive technologies and more.
As Brooke Grammier, our Chief Information Officer, put it, "We can't rely on others to always provide the technologies we need today. We have the insights and understanding to identify what can truly improve our processes and help our clients do more for the people they serve. That's why we're making big investments in our technology team — to push us to dream big and turn our ideas into solutions we can deploy”.
