The Workplace Wellbeing and the Internet (W-WATI) project is one of Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute’s Welfare Campaign projects. The project team will be using the Cobot Maker Space throughout their research.

The W-WATI project conducts a suite of activities to address different dimensions of wellbeing in the workplace as they relate to the Internet. As part of this they are experimenting with two Internet-based robotic technologies designed to boost wellbeing in the workplace:

• The Cheerbot workplace robot to promote healthier behaviours such as taking breaks, keeping hydrated, dancing and encouraging laughing. Cheerbot was developed as part of another study by project team members.

• An AI based chatbot (animated avatar) to be developed as an interactive and engaging way to train managers and other people with line-management responsibilities so that they can better recognise and respond empathetically to employee well-being concerns. They will be using large-language models to adapt the conversation in real-time based to enable simulation of different scenarios.  Both interventions will be developed with attention to privacy protection and other responsibility issues plus workshops with users will be conducted as part of their deployment in workplace settings

More information on the W-WATI project here.