City of Virginia Beach
Shirell Hairston, IT Media & Communications

VB Connect is an interactive voice assistant application which allows the public to access City of Virginia Beach information via Alexa and Google Assistant powered devices. Our residents, visitors and employees now can use simple voice commands to inquire about city events, job listings, waste collection schedules, council meetings, property information and more.

Virginia Beach has multiple departments whose services are spread across the city's main website or department-branded websites, which can make them difficult to locate. The challenge was to enhance citizen user experience by providing these services from a centralized location.

VB Connect was originally developed as a mobile app that consolidates and provides access to such services via a single portal. Since evolving into a voice assistant application, VB Connect now uses Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant platforms for design and development of a smart speaker application; it creates shared libraries and functions through Amazon Web Services (AWS). VB Connect further exemplifies the city's commitment to serving its diverse audiences and continually designing and delivering a relevant citizen experience.

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