MARCEL – Connecting 80K+ employees into one powerful A.I. unit
The Challenge:
Marcel is an AI platform built for the Publicis Groupe, by a dedicated team within Publicis Sapient and in close collaboration with Microsoft. The app links over 80,000 employees within Publicis Groupe across 150 agencies worldwide. As a central hub, Marcel improves communication and collaboration and streamlines access to information and resources. Users can easily search for colleagues with specific talents, skills, and experience and explore work from various industries and regions, along with details about the teams behind the campaigns and their contact information.
The immediate challenge was conveying value to employees so they would incorporate Marcel into their daily work lives. The tool helps you find people with specific skills and experience for a project. It delivers internal news and cultural pieces. It educates you on clients and streamlines email, scheduling, and time-tracking tasks.
The goal is to revolutionize the advertising industry by inventing new ways of working across the Publicis Groupe family of agencies.
The Process - A Collaboration with Microsoft and Publicis Groupe
As an Associate Creative Director, I led an amazing team of data scientists, technologists, and designers. We would pair to tackle different elements of the experience, like the app Onboarding, Search Disambiguation, Find Work / Post Jobs, User Feedback, News Articles, and Navigation.
We partnered with Microsoft to develop Marcel's AI and app components, connect existing employee portals, and standardize the database, which is Marcel's underlying power.
We worked in agile methods to design in sprints alongside the dev teams and keep features in the pipeline. Stand-ups and design critiques let us move quickly and cut blockers. We had daily contact with Microsoft, weekly reviews with our tech team, and regular work deliveries ready for development.
Below is a sample of artifacts created along the journey…
Onboarding - a friendly and intriguing entryway onto a new tool
Designed experience to educate prospective users on the benefits and tools that Marcel has to offer, encouraging sign up.
Find People - Find an expert with specific skills and experience
Marcel's conversational interface enables users to search for employees with specific roles, skills, and experience across a global network of 80,000 colleagues using either voice or keyboard input. This tool was purpose-built to enhance connection and collaboration among all Publicis agencies worldwide. My team was tasked with conceptualizing and designing this feature. We encountered various UX challenges, including data acquisition, profile organization, and establishing connections. Through research, we discovered ways to transform this feature into an opportunity platform for employees seeking career advancement or gain experience.
Find Work - Find award-winning work and people behind projects
My team was tasked with designing an interface to help users explore the top award-winning campaigns and the creative minds behind them from 150+ agencies. Marcel was instrumental in providing key details for each project, such as agency names, dates, collaborators, assets, awards, and contacts. Crafting this experience presented similar UX challenges when creating the expert finder tool. However, this time, we needed to develop solutions to accommodate the diverse project descriptions, categories, assets, and individuals involved.
Daily Digest - A hub for news, inspiration, and internal communication
The daily digest, a feature within Marcel, was delivered in six cards. Initially, we chose to template each card identically, featuring a title, description, and image. However, as we discovered we had enough resources to customize the cards, we opted for a less rigid design with minimal UI elements. This flexibility allowed the editorial team to present each card with more variety. Users responded positively to enticing them with diverse titles and graphics instead of sticking to a single template.
Example of navigation through the daily custom content published on the platform. I also helped define the behavior of notifications, nudges, disambiguation in the conversational interface, how Jobs may appear in the platform, user feedback, and global navigation.
The Result:
Marcel is a platform with multiple touchpoints, with app and web-based interfaces addressing unique contexts. The app is a conversational interface designed for quick use and task completion. The desktop site is a work dashboard, with tools designed for ongoing use throughout the day.
Marcel was rolled out regionally and launched in the U.K. in April 2019. The App and Web Platforms ran on the same underlying data. Early feedback has been exceptional, with new users assisting by offering input and guidance on future functionality.
You must be a Publicis Employee to access the app, but you can view the marcel.ai website here.
LINKS:
Full Announcement Presentation
Bloomberg Live uses Marcel as a transformative, industry-leading case study.
How Publicis Groupe has saved 2,000 jobs through the Marcel platform