On 16th February, Louise Glanville, Deputy CEO of the NDIA announced the NDIS's most recent innovation, the development of a ‘virtual assistant’ – ‘Nadia’. Nadia has been developed to provide people with disability with information about the NDIS when and how they want it. Initially Nadia will be used to answer the most common questions people have about the Scheme, but over time, with your help she will develop the capacity to provide detailed responses to a wide range of queries.

Nadia has been co-designed by people with disability with the NDIS's Digital Innovation Reference Group taking the lead. The NDIA also engaged with people with a wide range of different disabilities to ensure Nadia is a useful tool for everyone.

Nadia will be accessible 24/7 through the myplace portal. She can speak, write and chat online and has been designed to meet international accessibility guidelines. She can already understand thousands of questions put to her, and will answer with clear and simple responses. The more interactions she has with people, the more her knowledge bank will grow.

The plan is for Nadia to be released in a trial environment on the myplace portal in the next few months. Nadia will start as a "trainee". It will take 12 months and a great deal of interactions with NDIS stakeholders for Nadia to become fully operational. The Agency will hold information sessions to inform people how they can engage with and use Nadia over the next couple of months. We hope that you will start using Nadia as soon as she is available, and help build her knowledge base, making it easier for all stakeholders to have their questions answered quickly and clearly.

Cate Blanchett has donated her time to provide the voice of Nadia.

Please take the time to watch this short video that tells the Nadia story here.