VHB recently held Ignite AI, a firmwide innovation challenge that invited employees to explore practical uses of artificial intelligence by creating custom agents in ChatVHB, the firm’s proprietary generative AI tool. The initiative encouraged VHBers to create agents to transform daily work, streamline tasks, and enhance productivity across the organization.
Employees embraced the challenge with 38 agent submissions. Even more impressive—during the six-week period, agent creation across VHB surged to nearly 500 agents with many VHBers experimenting with the tool. Additionally, employees participated in Ignite AI weekly office hours to learn, ask questions, and hear about some of the agents being created.
"The response to our Ignite AI challenge reflects the innovative culture we're building at VHB," said President Bill Ashworth, "This kind of curiosity is essential to transforming how we work and support clients. We are committed to empowering our teams to strategically integrate AI."
The challenge sought agents that could benefit a wide variety of employees and clients across VHB's diverse practice areas. This challenge sparked innovative ideas throughout the organization and helped employees think differently about how AI can enable them to be more effective.
“Ignite AI showed me how accessible AI becomes when given the chance to experiment,” said agent creator Victor Cabrera. “I don’t have a traditional software background, but with ChatVHB I built an agent that improves how we work—and it’s empowering to know that anyone at VHB can do the same.”
Top three AI agents
Draft Coach (Victor Cabrera)—a professional writing improvement tool that reviews and enhances business writing while supporting users as they become better writers.
MUTCD Agent (Devin Ming, JL Coelho, Nick Bohlke, and Seif Eteifa)—an intelligent reference assistant designed to interpret and operationalize the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices 11th Edition.
Catalyst | Integrated Design Recommendations (Danielle Civitillo)—an assistant that supports civil engineers and planners by generating customized, data-driven insights based on project type, location, and phase.
VHB is transforming how we serve our clients and drive innovation through the strategic integration of AI. Learn more about how our improved efficiencies, data processing, and enhanced design processes are revolutionizing the way we work.
