The Customs and Excise Department on Friday said it has introduced a virtual assistant at the airport to answer questions from travellers, with the aim of better serving the public and saving manpower.

It said the AI-powered bot named XiaoHui - which looks like a digital mall directory - responds in real time to spoken enquiries like the amount of cigarettes and liquor people can bring into Hong Kong duty-free, and general questions like what to do about missing luggage.

The assistant, which speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin, has also been launched at the West Kowloon high-speed rail station, as well as border crossings at Heung Yuen Wai and the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge.

Assistant staff officer from the IT office of the department, Ng Wai-ming, said he hopes the AI assistant, which cost HK$6 million to develop, will save manpower.

“At the moment, we estimate that the system can handle 30 percent of our general enquiries and so we can release our manpower for other aspects of the Customs department’s work,” he said.

Ng said the AI assistant should be available at other border crossings by the end of next year.