Procurement through GeM is digital, paperless, and faceless with least human intervention: Dr Pankaj Dikshit, CTO, GeM
The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is among the frontrunners in driving innovation and growth by leveraging advanced technologies. In an exclusive conversation with Express Computer, Dr Pankaj Dikshit, Chief Technology Officer, GeM, opened up on GeMAI, the first generative AI (GenAI) powered chatbot deployed (on a public sector web platform) to effectively answer general-purpose queries in English and even respond to mere keywords related to GeM. He further draws light on GeM’s user-centric approach to improve user experience through AI deployment and shares a glimpse of the work culture that enables cross-learning and upskilling.
GeM, at present, is the world’s second-largest public procurement platform just behind Korea Online e-Procurement System (KONEPS), however, GeM is gearing up to take the top position soon. How do you plan to take the top spot?
At GeM, we are completely focused on the users of our portal viz. the public procurement officials from the government departments – central ministries, states, and even panchayats and cooperatives. The other set of our users are the sellers. Whatever their budget for any type of procurement, be it stationery for their office, any work equipment worth crores, a service contract for taxis, or any other requirement, we like to ensure that all the requirements of the public/ government sector are met through the GeM portal and it becomes their go-to procurement platform.
As of now, the complete government funds sanctioned for central ministries, trade ministries or cooperatives, and franchises, are not spent through GeM entirely. This could be due to certain limitations, such as sellers being unavailable for a particular product, lack of services or product availability of certain specific requirements, or other reasons and exigencies. We proactively try to address all the needs of the buyers and sellers and ensure that GeM is the go-to platform for every buyer for every purchase – when it comes to public procurement.
We are also planning to add the Works contracts like road construction, building construction, and more, on the GeM platform. The volume of Works contract and procurement requirements are not only large in terms of scale but in terms of complexity as well. As and when the consideration is done and GeM is so directed, the GeM system will be prepared for it. If we have Works contracts also available on GeM, it will be a significant leap in GeMs growth graph.
GeM is on the path to digitise, automate, and transform. How are you faring on that front? And, how will it impact public procurement in the country?
Today, at GeM, no papers are submitted during any procurement process. It is a completely digital, paperless, and faceless transaction that requires least or no human intervention. It is probably the most efficient platform out there for public procurement, as can be seen from its daily use in terms of number of orders – both in terms of volume and value. We are constantly learning and improving from the users’ inputs and the feedback received at our helpdesk. While we have a robust digital system in place, we have partnered with TCS to develop and build GeM 2.0 as a completely new platform from scratch.
GeM has undergone the digitisation phase and the next step is to bring in automation which will take the transformation to the next level. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a maturing technology and we are keen to use it, experiment with it with pilots, and then implement it. The new GeM platform will include AI deployments and automation of workflows. This will not only ease the procurement process but reinforce our user-centric approach while improving customer experience on GeM.
What is GeMAI? How is it enabling GeM to handle that huge load of suppliers and buyers?
We are the first platform to have a public sector to introduce GenAI on our platform. One of the best use cases for GeMAI is to handle the numerous queries we get from our current and potential users for which we have a GenAI-based chatbot on the GeM website. Queries such as “What is GeM all about?”, “How to register on the platform?”, “How to find various products and services?”, “What are the features of GeM?” can be asked in simple English and the bot answers promptly and accurately. Earlier, we had a static chatbot throwing out mechanical, pre-fed responses. However, now we have a GenAI-powered conversational chatbot that can interact in English. A user can use sentences or just keywords to fetch answers and it responds effectively. The GeMAI has enabled us to answer all the general-purpose queries that were earlier handled by the helpdesk. Hence, it is taking up the load of the contact center as far as routine queries are concerned.
In our roadmap of more GenAI use cases with GeMAI we plan to create issue tickets for users. This is also one of the primary functions of the helpdesk, and a dedicated person is required for it. With the help of AI, we can automate this. The chatbot will be able to provide the real-time status of the tickets raised. Our digital initiatives and AI deployments could help us in reducing the number of agents serving at the helpdesk while shifting the major workload of the contact centre to the chatbot.
There are other multiple focus areas wherein we intend to use GenAI like BI and Analytics. Today, you have to run ETL batches for hours using multiple queries to generate meaningful reports. Leveraging AI can help get near real-time responses more efficiently and with less efforts. We have more such use cases related to the GeM business scenarios in the pipeline such as Human Resources where hiring takes place and hundreds of resumes and CVs need to be evaluated and assessed. An AI-powered solution can help them summarise the loads of resumes and CVs and sort out the relevant ones based on job description, work experience, or other preferred criteria. We can also train AI models to aid the HR team in shortlisting suitable profiles and conducting preliminary interviews. The AI agents can be deployed to conduct automated interviews, again to filter out suitable profiles for face-to-face interviews with department heads. With AI, there are immense possibilities and vast potential to transform work processes. There are many more AI deployment use cases but this is just a glimpse of how we see the future shaping up.
A stronger workforce forms the foundation of a successful business. How is GeM building the capacities of its workforce? Are you leveraging technology solutions in this area as well?
In terms of initiatives we are taking to build the capacities of our workforce and upskill them, I underlined the AI deployment use case for our HR team, as an example. Also, the GeMAI chatbot can take over the redundant tasks at the contact centre enabling us to utilise our workforce effectively for cognitive tasks. Further, we are in the phase of automating multiple business processes which will help our workforce to upskill and enhance efficiency. Our goal is to bring in optimum automation to increase efficiency and effectiveness while improving the overall business output and enhancing customer experience.
In addition, our policies have provisions for self-training through learning portals or face-to-face classroom training, and the company extends the relevant support as well. We encourage individuals to undertake learning and training sessions.
