SGT STAR


SGT STAR, also known as Sgt. Star or Sergeant Star, is a chatbot operated by the United States Army to answer questions about recruitment.

Background

After the September 11 attacks, traffic increased significantly to chatrooms on the U.S. Army's website, goarmy.com, increasing costs of staffing the live chatrooms. As a cost-cutting measure, the SGT STAR project was initiated as a partnership between the United States Army Accessions Command and Next IT, a Spokane, Washington-based company specializing in "intelligent virtual assistants," using software called ActiveAgent. Testing began in 2003, and SGT STAR launched to the public in 2006. "STAR" is an acronym for "strong, trained and ready."
SGT STAR was launched in a chat interface on goarmy.com, but has since been developed as a mobile application, as well as a life-size animated projection that has appeared live at public events. SGT STAR can also interact with users on Facebook.

FOIA request

In 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about SGT STAR, including input and output patterns, usage statistics, contracts, and privacy policies. They received these records in April 2014, after coverage from various media outlets and a tongue-in-cheek campaign to "Free Sgt. Star."