COVIBOT: A Smart Chatbot for Assistance and E-Awareness during COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has spread over the past two years in our highly connected and information-dense society. Nonetheless, disseminating accurate and up-to-date information on the spread of this pandemic remains a challenge. In this context, opting for a solution based on conversational artificial intelligence, also known under the name of the chatbot, is proving to be an unavoidable solution, especially since it has already shown its effectiveness in fighting the coronavirus crisis in several countries. This work proposes to design and implement a smart chatbot on the theme of COVID-19, called COVIBOT, which will be useful in the context of Saudi Arabia. COVIBOT is a generative-based contextual chatbot, which is built using machine learning APIs that are offered by the cloud-based Azure Cognitive Services. Two versions of COVIBOT are offered: English and Arabic versions. Use cases of COVIBOT are tested and validated using a scenario-based approach.