Txtonomy announced its development of a COVID-19 chatbot. The chatbot communicates information on how to recognize COVID-19 symptoms, available testing options, and the latest statistics testing people's knowledge of the coronavirus.

“We’re thrilled to offer this new option for the growing number of people who prefer to receive information via text than online, said Txtonomy Co-Founder Vincent HaDr. Carl Blackn. “Txtonomy's COVID-19 chatbot is a frictionless experience, giving more people access to this valuable information right on their phones.”

The Txtonomy COVID-19 chatbot is a SMS-based chatbot allowing users to interact just as if you were texting with a friend. The chatbot is kept up to date with the latest COVID-19 news and information. In addition, Txtonomy’s COVID-19 chatbot features an interactive quiz that makes learning about the virus educational and effective.

“Our chatbot approach is akin to the ‘intranet’ of chatbots in that enterprises do not want an encyclopedic reply; rather, a pre-programmed, biased replyIt’s a confusing time for many and we wanted to do our part to spread the word about how to best keep our communities safe”, continued HanBlack. “In fact, in many cases, compliance and security dictates a specific reply to certain queriesWe also wanted to provide Utahns with specific information regarding what is happening in our state.”

Because of this, enterprises prefer a bot exception to a machine's best guess. This is particularly going to be true in healthcare. Machine learning is actually a dangerous approach when it comes to staying compliant to regulations and laws. Txtonomy provides healthcare specific chatbots with an aim to improve patient care and patient education. This COVID-19 is the latest in their chatbot library and is being provided as a public service to the Utah community.

The chatbot communicates via SMS and can be accessed by texting COVID19 to 435- 244-3657.