FIBA: 72k Conversations in 2 Weeks With GPT Agent

FIBA is a global governing authority for basketball that represents 212 National Basketball Federations around the world and organizes and oversees international competitions, including the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 and Olympic Basketball Tournaments.

FIBA brings together a vast community of 450 million players and fans, fostering a solid global basketball community.

The Context

Anticipation was building for the grand event in the summer of 2023 - the World Basketball Cup. To ensure a seamless and user-friendly experience for fans, the FIBA’s team put in a tremendous amount of effort. Their primary objective was to find a solution that could bridge the gap between fans from across the globe and their platform, allowing each fan to access the information they desired right from the homepage.

FIBA already created a character that was an incredible embodiment of high social responsibility and unwavering principles - the World Cup official mascot - JIP, the basketball robot. Yet it lacked a voice. The solution to this conundrum was on the surface: create a chatbot!

In February 2023, ChatGPT had gained considerable popularity. At that stage, they decided to put it to the test with a simple query: "Hey, can you recommend the top custom chatbot development agency?" The first option presented by ChatGPT was BotsCrew. And so, the journey began.

The Challenge

FIBA’s team approached us with the goal of giving their mascot a voice and the ability to interact with fans in 5 different languages in real time.

They requested the development of a special chatbot designed to deliver timely and accurate information about the FIBA World Cup. Given the vast fan base, their aim was to enhance the user experience by providing easy access to tournament-related information and engaging with as many users as possible through notifications to keep them updated on relevant news and events, like current MVPs and favorite teams updates after each match.

Max Gladysh, the BotsCrew’s co-founder, is a big fan of basketball. He shared with FIBA's team his vision of the requirements and a future solution that would align seamlessly with their budget, timeline, and audience needs, proving to be mutually beneficial for both parties. Here, we found common ground.

Therefore, within the next 4 months, we were expected to develop the chatbot which will:

The Solution

Meet JIP — a basketball robot named by the initials of its co-hosting nations: Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines. JIP's mission is to foster global unity, bringing people together under the banner of basketball.

Thanks to the GPT-4 foundation, JIP has rapidly learned to communicate in multiple languages. As a result, it provides fans and visitors with the freedom to pick their preferred language for the conversation. You can choose from a range of options, including English, Japanese, Indonesian, French, and Spanish.

JIP is seamlessly integrated with FIBA's API, ensuring he could provide accurate and timely data within seconds. This includes frequently changing updates to the schedule, scores, teams, players, and venue information.

JIP is really good at understanding natural language questions and giving you meaningful answers. JIP knows a lot about the FIBA competition and can handle a wide range of questions about the World Cup 2023. For example, JIP knows quite a bit about the history of the Basketball World Cup – he can tell you how the tournament works, its history, and some interesting facts. He's knowledgeable about the teams, the best players, the groups, the leaders, and much more. Plus, JIP has a personality – he identifies himself as a basketball robot!

Operating within a continuous stream of data, JIP efficiently manages multiple concurrent user requests while maintaining a high level of performance.

A chatbot was built using the BotsCrew platform, making it convenient to make updates and fix any errors in JIP's functionality with no coding. BotsCrew took care of all aspects of development and provided ongoing support for the project.

Additionally, Platform Analytics enabled FIBA to identify popular topics and subjects among the audience based on the specific questions and issues they raised with JIP.

The Result

In just two weeks after we introduced a chatbot widget for JIP, it talked to over 73,000 basketball fans. FIBA notes that "the [chatbot’s] outcomes proved gratifying particularly with regard to overall user satisfaction and adoption".

Many users were excited, asking who JIP is and why recycling is a good idea.

Moreover, around 71.51% of users successfully completed various interactions without the need for natural language understanding. These interactions included promotions: it was also set as a chatbot for lead generation. It aimed to encourage people to explore more information, subscribe to newsletters, or get match results.

The Feedback