‘Cari’ was developed with Mobilise Cloud Services to support 16-18-year-olds and their parents or guardians by triaging queries and signposting users to self-help resources located on the Careers Wales website
The Welsh Government’s careers service has detailed the development and introduction of a bilingual AI-powered chatbot designed to support teenagers with their choices.
The “Cari” chatbot is a prominent feature of the Careers Wales website and has been created to help 16-18-year-olds and their parents or guardians with queries and direct them towards relevant resources.
Cari does not provide personalised careers advice or make decisions about eligibility for particular options, but it does assist users with finding Careers Wales digital resources, booking routes for career guidance and getting contact-centre support.
The development of Cari is unpacked in a recent transparency document published by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on the government’s Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard Hub.
It says the tool, which went live in beta in early August, is designed to improve accessibility to careers support by responding to common, non‑complex queries and directing users to existing Careers Wales content.
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Cari is operated by Career Choices Dewis Gyrfa, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Welsh Government that trades as Careers Wales.
Development of the chatbot was led by Bridgend-based Mobilise Cloud Services, which was appointed following a “mini-competition” for the project among existing framework suppliers.
Cari is built in Microsoft’s Copilot Studio. Careers Wales said that because the tool also includes an element of internal learning and capacity building for future projects, the team wanted to ensure “maximum compatibility” with existing Microsoft infrastructure and ringfence data.
Careers Wales said Cari was tested through defined demo and scenario‑based testing to verify that its behaviours are proportionate to its role as a triage and signposting tool for careers-related enquiries.
The tool was also tested against “intentionally harmful” or non‑careers or education‑related prompts to make sure that it refuses such queries and does not generate unsafe or inappropriate responses.
The transparency document states that as Cari is restricted to using data and information only from publicly-available parts of the Careers Wales website, the risk of incorrect responses, misleading responses or hallucinations is minimised.
Careers Wales said an equality impact assessment conducted in June this year found that Cari had “the potential to improve access to careers information and guidance by providing a bilingual, accessible, 24-7 digital service that complements human advisers and particularly benefits young people who face barriers to traditional support”.
It said the assessment identified positive impacts across most protected characteristics, highlighted risks relating to accessibility, digital exclusion and potential AI bias, and set out mitigations.
“Overall, the assessment recommended proceeding with the project subject to ongoing accessibility monitoring and maintenance, monitoring of AI bias and outputs and monitoring of Welsh language parity,” Careers Wales said.
The organisation told PublicTechnology that early pre-launch testing found that users considered the service easy to use, appreciated that it recognised the language they used – including spelling mistakes, and valued the fact that it stayed focused on relevant topics.
Emma Blandon, who is head of digital and communications at Careers Wales, said: “Cari is an exciting development that complements our existing digital and adviser-led services. It gives customers another way to access trusted information 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, while ensuring personalised support from our careers advisers and employability coaches remains available whenever it’s needed.”
Blandon said Careers Wales is committed to exploring the benefits of AI responsibly and ensuring appropriate governance is in place when introducing new technologies.
“Alongside Cari we also created a younger person’s version of our AI privacy policy,” she said. “We’re currently rolling the service out in beta and are working closely with young people to gather feedback and understand how they use it. Those insights are helping us continue to refine and improve the experience, ensuring the support we provide meets the needs of our customers.”