What is Advocait?
Non-Technical Explanation: Advocait is a helpful digital assistant that connects Helping Professionals serving vulnerable populations with local financial resources and support programs. When someone is facing financial challenges, the Helping Professional (e.g. a nurse, or caseworker at a housing nonprofit) can tell Advocait about the situation, and through a short conversation, it will match them with specific local programs, benefits, and services they may qualify for. It's like having a knowledgeable local guide who knows all about financial assistance programs and can quickly point you to the right ones for your needs.
Technical Explanation: Advocait is a locally focused AI assistant built on Anthropic's Claude API, specifically engineered to navigate a curated database of financial resources and programs based on selected geographies. The system employs a multi-turn dialogue approach with a maximum of three clarifying questions to gather relevant eligibility information. It's implemented using Python with a Gradio web interface, processing local document resources stored as Word files.
The architecture consists of three main components:
A document loader that processes and maintains a collection of proprietary research and intellectual property program information from .docx files
A context-aware question generation system that uses Claude to formulate relevant follow-up questions based on the above collection
A recommendation engine that matches user responses against program eligibility criteria to generate specific, actionable recommendations
The system is constrained to only recommend resources explicitly documented in its knowledge base, with prompt engineering implemented to prevent hallucination or suggestion of non-existent programs. It maintains conversation state across interactions and uses a stateful interface to manage the multi-turn dialogue flow.
