Uniting's Digital Assistant - buddy

Buddy was created to transform the way frontline care workers access information, complete documentation, and interact with enterprise services. The project's primary goal was to reduce administrative burden and return valuable time to employees so they could focus on what matters most, delivering high quality care and support to customers. The initiative sought to create a single digital front door that provides instant access to policies, procedures, knowledge, and enterprise services through a simple conversational experience. It also aimed to improve the quality, consistency, and timeliness of care documentation through multilingual voice-to-text capabilities, making technology more accessible for a diverse workforce.

Ultimately, the project's vision was to simplify the day in the life of employees, increase workforce capacity, and enable staff to spend more time with customers by "holding the hand, not the pen."

Buddy has delivered significant and measurable benefits across workforce productivity, employee experience and customer outcomes. Frontline workers report saving between one and two hours per day through reduced administration, faster information retrieval and streamlined documentation processes. The platform has become a single digital front door, enabling employees to access knowledge, enterprise services and multiple business systems through one app. Employees can now complete customer notes closer to the point of care using multilingual voice-to-text capabilities, improving both documentation quality and timeliness.

Buddy has also improved accessibility and inclusion by supporting more than 50 languages and simplifying technology interactions for employees with varying levels of digital literacy. Most importantly, Buddy has successfully achieved its core objective of reducing administration and allowing employees to focus on delivering higher quality care and support

Buddy is a cloud based generative AI platform built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI, leveraging GPT models, voice transcription services, enterprise search and workflow automation capabilities. The solution integrates with more than ten enterprise systems, providing employees with a single digital front door for accessing services, knowledge and support. Connected systems include HR, payroll, IT service management, learning and development platforms, policy repositories, SharePoint content and clinical care systems. The platform supports multilingual voice-to-text, allowing employees to create documentation and interact with services through natural language. Buddy is accessible via standard mobile devices, tablets and desktop computers, enabling frontline workers to use the solution wherever care is delivered. The platform is supported by secure cloud infrastructure, enterprise identity and access controls, system integrations, knowledge repositories and Responsible AI governance

Buddy was a highly complex transformation project that combined emerging AI technologies, enterprise integration, governance and workforce change management. The solution required the design and deployment of a secure generative AI platform built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI, integrated with more than ten enterprise systems, including knowledge repositories, HR, payroll, IT and clinical platforms. A significant complexity was delivering AI within a highly regulated aged care environment while maintaining privacy, security, compliance and responsible AI standards. The project required the establishment of governance frameworks, identity and access controls, enterprise search capabilities and multilingual voice-to-text functionality supporting more than 50 languages.

Equally challenging was the human-centred approach. Extensive discovery workshops, co-design sessions were held with the business to ensure a scalable technology was delivered meeting their needs

1. Initial Situation

Uniting’s frontline workforce spent significant time navigating multiple systems to access information, complete documentation and manage administrative tasks. Care workers often needed to search across different applications for policies, procedures, training materials and support services, reducing the time available for direct customer care. As a large aged care and community services provider with a diverse workforce, including many employees whose first language is not English, Uniting needed a solution that could improve productivity, accessibility and employee experience while maintaining strong governance, privacy and regulatory compliance.

2. Implemented Solution

The project began through participation in the Microsoft Incubation Lab, where Uniting worked with Microsoft to explore how emerging AI technologies could address genuine business challenges. Extensive discovery workshops were conducted with frontline employees, managers and support teams to identify operational pain points and prioritise high-value use cases.

The outcome was Buddy, a purpose-built enterprise generative AI platform and digital front door for employees. Built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Buddy combines conversational AI, multilingual voice-to-text, enterprise search, workflow automation and integration across more than ten enterprise systems. Employees can create customer progress notes through voice dictation, access policies and procedures using natural language, retrieve organisational knowledge, and access HR, payroll, learning and IT services through a single interface.

3. Implementation Specifics

A human-centred design approach was used throughout the project, with frontline workers actively involved in design, testing and rollout. The solution was delivered incrementally, focusing first on the use cases expected to generate the greatest employee benefit.

The most significant challenge was implementing enterprise-scale generative AI within a highly regulated aged care environment. This required the establishment of a Responsible AI framework covering governance, privacy, security, risk management and ongoing monitoring. The project also involved integrating multiple enterprise systems, creating secure knowledge repositories and implementing scalable cloud infrastructure capable of supporting thousands of users.

What makes Buddy unique is that every major capability was directly informed by problems identified by frontline workers, ensuring the technology solved real business challenges rather than simply deploying AI for its own sake.

4. Changes After Implementation

Buddy has transformed how employees interact with technology across Uniting. Staff now access information, services and enterprise systems through a single conversational interface rather than navigating multiple applications. Buddy demonstrates how responsible AI can be deployed at scale to improve employee experience, organisational performance and customer outcomes.

Buddy was implemented across Uniting NSW.ACT, one of Australia’s largest providers of aged care, community, disability and health services. The solution supports employees working across metropolitan, regional and remote locations throughout New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, including residential aged care homes, home and community care services, retirement living operations and corporate offices.

The platform was specifically designed to support a highly distributed workforce, enabling employees to access information, systems and services from mobile devices, tablets and desktops regardless of location. This was particularly important for home and community care workers who spend much of their day delivering services in customers’ homes rather than from fixed office locations.

By providing a single digital front door accessible anywhere, Buddy has created a consistent employee experience across geographically dispersed teams and service environments.