Stearns County human services rolls out 'EVA' AI assistant, board approves vendor contract
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Summary
Stearns County approved the Human Services deployment of an Electronic Virtual Assistant (EVA) that reads client rights, assists staff and handles phone intake; staff said EVA has saved hundreds of staff hours, TIBCO is the vendor, and the board approved the contract and deployment with oversight and monitoring in place.
The Stearns County Board voted to approve item E14 to authorize continued deployment and vendor engagement for EVA, an Electronic Virtual Assistant used by Human Services to handle routine interviews, rights-and-responsibilities readings and portions of phone intake.
Melissa Huberty, Human Services administrator, described three EVA products — EVA Companion (staff support), EVA Interview (reads required rights and responsibilities) and EVA Phones (handles callers routed to 0 on the phone tree). "EVA Companion answers those questions on policy, saves significant time in helping new staff to train new staff," Huberty said. Mike Pooler, gateway services director, said EVA has been active for about six months and that EVA's rights-and-responsibilities reading saves around "9 to 10 minutes a call," with "a few hundred hours of phone time recorded" so far. Pooler said TIBCO is the vendor and that the contract includes monthly releases and improvements; county staff and a vendor dashboard monitor transcripts and flag incorrect answers for retraining.
Commissioners asked how EVA handles language detection, when callers must attest to rights and responsibilities, how many staff review transcripts and whether the technology could be applied to other county operations such as emergency dispatch. Pooler said EVA can detect language (Spanish example) and currently acts as a back‑stop via the phone tree; if EVA cannot answer it escalates callers to a staff worker. Huberty said the county asked Human Services staff across divisions to review transcripts for a short daily period to provide corrections that feed EVA’s learning. A commissioner asked about contract cost; staff referenced the TIBCO engagement and a figure mentioned in the discussion of roughly $213,000 for vendor services in the packet materials and said the county receives ongoing software updates as part of the arrangement.
The board approved item E14 by voice vote. Staff will continue transcript monitoring and report back to the board on performance and implementation.
