Challenge.

At an insurance company like VPV, which has been offering insurance and financial services for nearly 200 years, the company’s internal knowledge has grown steadily over the years. The wording of a policy—and thus the exact terms and conditions of coverage—must remain clear even years later. In addition, there is a wealth of internal information that employees in both the office and in the field access on a daily basis. But searching for this information is time-consuming. VPV Insurance therefore wanted to use artificial intelligence (AI) to support this information search. However, the AI was not only supposed to search through documents but also to understand queries and reliably assign them to the appropriate subject area. The goal: an AI-powered solution that provides reliable answers, including citations.

We are extremely satisfied with the results our AI chatbot is delivering. The support we received from Bechtle was excellent. This enabled us to make significant progress in using Copilot Studio. During the workshops, we worked together to find the right solution for every challenge and always received prompt, accurate answers to our questions. This allowed us to continuously advance the development of the AI chatbot.

Steffen Guttenbacher, Board Member in Charge of AI, VPV Insurance

Solution.

Bechtle presented VPV with suitable AI platforms and compared the various solution approaches. It quickly became clear that a single AI agent would not be able to reliably cover VPV’s diverse areas of expertise. The ideal alternative: a multi-agent approach based on Microsoft Copilot Studio. To this end, Bechtle and the VPV divided the company’s knowledge into thematic areas and developed specialized agents. For example, one agent handled questions about insurance products, while another addressed questions related to the cafeteria. In total, eight specialized agents were created. A higher-level orchestrator automatically assigns each inquiry to the appropriate agent. The result: Each agent searches exclusively within the information relevant to its own subject area and provides a targeted, appropriate response. Bechtle provided ongoing support to VPV throughout the implementation and answered all technical questions that arose. Both partners worked together to address new requirements. Bechtle also advised VPV on governance and security in Microsoft Copilot Studio. In this way, the company gradually built up its own expertise in Microsoft Copilot Studio. Today, several specialized AI agents work together via a shared interface and reliably answer questions from a wide variety of VPV’s areas of expertise. Since then, VPV’s AI team has been independently further developing the AI chatbot.

Business benefits.

  • More precise answers: Through AI agents specialized by topic, rather than a central knowledge database.
  • Traceable sources: Through direct references to the documents used for each answer.
  • Secure AI deployment: Even under the requirements of a BaFin-regulated insurance company.
  • Faster access to information: Even with a large volume of documents and corporate knowledge.
  • AI that can be expanded independently: Through the AI team’s accumulated expertise in Microsoft Copilot Studio.
  • Expert guidance: Through close consultation and technical support from Bechtle.