What happened
The Agence pour l'informatique financière de l'État (AIFE) runs Chorus Pro, the portal through which suppliers send invoices to the French state. Between 2018 and 2020 the portal became mandatory for mid-sized, small and very small firms. User requests rose from 20,000 to 100,000 a month. The AIFE answered them with ClaudIA, a chatbot that passes the questions that it cannot handle to online advisers. Le Monde Informatique reported in 2018 that ClaudIA ran on IBM's Watson artificial intelligence. In observations published on 22 October 2024, the Cour des comptes found that ClaudIA absorbed the extra load without extra staff. Its productivity gains exceeded the needs created by the wider use of Chorus Pro, so posts were returned and spending fell. The Cour notes that ClaudIA answers nearly 80% of users' questions. A transformation contract planned the return of 28 full-time posts and savings of €1.3 million a year. The AIFE told the Cour that 55% of the planned savings had been achieved.
Sources
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Audit report, by authors with no tie to the system.
Cour des comptes. L’intelligence artificielle dans les politiques publiques : l’exemple du ministère de l’économie et des finances. Observations définitives S2024-1165, adopted 18 July 2024 and published 22 October 2024, p. 35 and table 1, p. 16.
Le nombre de sollicitations par les usagers est ainsi passé de 20 000 à 100 000 par mois et le robot ClaudIA a permis d’absorber cette charge sans y consacrer d’effectifs supplémentaires.
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News report, by authors with no tie to the system. Context or contrary evidence.
Laurent Mavallet. Chorus Pro active un chatbot sous IBM Watson. Le Monde Informatique, 27 March 2018.
Disponible depuis fin 2017, ce chatbot, baptisé Claudia, repose sur la technologie d'intelligence artificielle Watson d'IBM.
Details
AI system
- Workflow
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The chatbot answered Chorus Pro users' questions and passed the rest to online advisers. The AIFE kept enriching the chatbot's answers.
Money
- Kind of value
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Annual savings planned under the transformation contract for ClaudIA, of which the AIFE reports 55% achieved
- Amount
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Estimate: 1,3 M€
- Recipients and payers
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The French state (AIFE)
Follow-up
- Conditions for replication
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Online advisers must take the questions that the chatbot cannot answer.
Entry details
- Sector
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Public finance (e-invoicing support).
- Purpose
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The AIFE built ClaudIA to help Chorus Pro users with their procedures and to pass the questions that it cannot answer to online advisers.
Not yet checked: model, release, provider, role, configuration, inputs and outputs, autonomy, human oversight, AI contribution, beneficiaries, reach, distribution and access, duration, every measurement question, currency and prices, period and unit, realization, gross or net, included costs, comparison, method, return and payback, ownership and control, dependencies, cross-border connections, geopolitical implications, replication attempts, availability, institutional decision, grounds, action and result, success criterion, every evidence question, observed or intended, alternative assessments, related entries, other identifiers, category mappings.
Cite this record
Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). ClaudIA chatbot absorbs a fivefold rise in e-invoicing questions (AIBD-0681). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 31 October 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-0681.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 4.0)