AI New Tech

UGuide

An AI-powered pathway to help students explore majors, resources, and opportunities

Overview & Objective

UGuide is a virtual docent that helps students explore majors in a simple, personalized way. Students need a holistic method to investigate majors from multiple angles (e.g., career paths, schedules), but that information is often decentralized and difficult to absorb. UGuide aggregates and surfaces information across the University through an approachable, responsive chat interface that allows students to pilot their own paths of inquiry.

UGuide is a part of the A.I.I.’s growing suite of specialized AI-powered chatbots (UBot, Swoop Web Bot) that are specifically trained to close gaps in student success by providing targeted, highly personalized responses in an accessible, deployable, and scalable way.

Funders

Office of Undergraduate Studies

Status & Next Steps

UGuide is in the early stages of development and will soon be piloted and tested in upcoming semesters with several colleges.

Approach

UGuide is designed to be easily accessible and highly interactive, making choosing a major less daunting and more approachable. It continuously surfaces prompts based on other students' queries to encourage dialog and provides relevant University tools and resources throughout the conversation.

UGuide and other chatbots in the A.I.I. suite are self-serve, multilingual, and infinitely patient. They allow students to engage with them in their own time and way, making them more accessible than some traditional in-person resources.