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Title
North Dakota University System builds a GenAI 'Policy Assistant' on Databricks for instant policy search
…tem CUSTOMER STORY Graduating higher education from traditional to cutting-edge 10–20x Faster using a comprehensive LLM for policy search and response 2x Decrease in time to market, from 1 year to 6 months 100% Reduced procurement…
Description
The North Dakota University System (NDUS) used the Databricks Data + AI Platform with Llama 2/DBRX, Foundation Model APIs, Unity Catalog and AI Search to build 'Policy Assistant,' a GenAI application that synthesizes over 3,000 public policy PDFs so staff can query regulations in plain English and get answers with page references and links in seconds instead of hours. The system cut NDUS's time to bring new data insights to market from one year to six months, 10-20x faster than manual policy search.
…omated search and response application called “Policy Assistant” in six months. Over 3,000 public PDFs are now contained and synthesized in Databricks, with the LLM surfacing automatic policy search and response. Users prompt the LLM within the System with plain English via an API to instant…
Company
North Dakota University System
…6 months 100% Reduced procurement time and costs leveraging Databricks on Azure The North Dakota University System (NDUS) includes 11 institutions, all governed by the State Board of Higher Education (SBHE). Critical to mitigating risk and remaining in good standing, NDUS relies on thou…
Industry
Education
…us to streamline processes and better serve our stakeholders.” Share this post Details Industry : Education , Public Sector Use Case : Artificial Intelligence Cloud : Azure Product : Agent Bricks Ready t…
Problem
Without a modernized data and AI platform, NDUS data teams spent considerable time wading through pages, references, codes and contracts across thousands of internal policies and state laws to ensure regulatory compliance, relying solely on institutional knowledge and people, which limited their ability to share these resources and slowed users searching for what a policy actually said.
…hing, but without any enablement, users were slow to surface what they needed.” Relying solely on institutional knowledge and people, NDUS was limited in its ability to share these one-of-a-kind resources and ensure their knowledge was retained by the universities. NDUS needed a unified, user-friendly and scalable data platform to empower data…
Solution
NDUS expanded its existing Databricks Data + AI Platform on Azure into generative AI, testing open source LLMs before choosing Llama 2 (and later DBRX), using Foundation Model APIs to build applications without custom model deployment complexity, Unity Catalog for unified access controls, and AI Search for automatic data synchronization, to build 'Policy Assistant,' a low-risk automated search and response application built in six months.
…to continue consolidating and simplifying on Databricks.” After LLM evaluation, the data team used Foundation Model APIs to quickly build applications that leverage GenAI without the complexity of custom model deployment. Data governance is a key requirement across NDUS’ GenAI use cases. With Unity C…
Technology
Llama 2, DBRX, Foundation Model APIs, Unity Catalog, Databricks AI Search, MLflow, Agent Bricks
…number one criteria in choosing an LLM, and then inference time, size and cost. We ended up on Llama 2, but now with DBRX, we’re going to continue consolidating and simplifying on Databricks.” After LLM evaluation, the data team used Foundation Model APIs to quickly buil…
Deployment model
cloud
…Cutting-edge technology revolutionizes AI applications for automatic efficiency Since taking advantage of the Databricks Data + AI Platform on Microsoft Azure, NDUS is not only managing its data in a centralized manner but also leveraging…
Deployment options
cloud
…us to streamline processes and better serve our stakeholders.” Share this post Details Industry : Education , Public Sector Use Case : Artificial Intelligence Cloud : Azure Product : Agent Bricks Ready to get started? Try Databricks for free Learn more…
Headline outcome
…tem CUSTOMER STORY Graduating higher education from traditional to cutting-edge 10–20x Faster using a comprehensive LLM for policy search and response 2x Decrease in time to market, from 1 year to 6 months 100% Reduced procurement…
Business value
NDUS reduced the time to bring new insights to market from one year to six months, achieved 10-20x faster policy search and response versus manual methods, eliminated procurement time and costs by using its existing Azure/Databricks relationship, and Policy Assistant increased team productivity by letting users avoid manually searching five different sites for one document.
…nerate accurate results with references, page numbers and links. Jockers said, “Without having to manually search five different sites for one document, Policy Assistant has increased our team productivity.” With a proven use case in production, NDUS is testing the automatic generation…
AI capabilities
Large Language Models, Document Intelligence
…omated search and response application called “Policy Assistant” in six months. Over 3,000 public PDFs are now contained and synthesized in Databricks, with the LLM surfacing automatic policy search and response. Users prompt the LLM within the System with plain English via an API to instant…
Use case type
Knowledge search
…zed in Databricks, with the LLM surfacing automatic policy search and response. Users prompt the LLM within the System with plain English via an API to instantly generate accurate results with references, page numbers and links. Jockers said, “Without having to manually search five different sites for one d…
