Homelessness doesn’t wait for 9:00 AM. With record numbers of young people reaching out during the cost-of-living crisis, Centrepoint’s helpline was facing a surge that exceeded human capacity. The risk was clear: a young person in a moment of crisis reaching out and finding a closed door.
We developed an intelligent out-of-hours digital assistant to act as a bridge. It’s more than a chatbot; it’s a localised guide. When a young person shares their location, the AI instantly retrieves precise local council data and emergency contact details. We built this on a foundation of safety, using controlled conversation flows that ensure every piece of advice is accurate, vetted, and empathetic.
“Many companies talk about partnership, but rarely do suppliers show the commitment and flexibility we have seen from ebm.”
In just six months, the assistant handled over 23,000 messages, providing a lifeline during the hours when help was previously unavailable.
For the first time, Centrepoint can see exactly what young people need in the middle of the night, allowing them to tailor their long-term strategy to real-world demand.
We trained the Centrepoint team to manage the system themselves. They own the content, they monitor the performance, and they decide how the ‘voice’ of the charity evolves.
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