AI NEW TECH
Swoop Web Bot
An AI-enabled chatbot that provides general University information to help students navigate the U.
Overview & Objective
Resources students need to make critical decisions about their university experience
(i.e., deadlines, offices, registration dates) are decentralized across campus. The
Swoop Web Bot is a focused AI-powered web bot that aggregates University of Utah general
information and surfaces it through an approachable chat interface to help students
quickly gather the information they need to make choices more efficiently.
Swoop is a part of the A.I.I.’s growing suite of specialized AI-powered chatbots (UBot, UGuide) that are specifically trained to close gaps in student success by providing targeted,
highly personalized responses in an accessible, deployable, and scalable way.
Partners
The A.I.I. is partnering with Mainstay to train and test WebBot on University-specific content.
Funders
Status & Next Steps
Swoop is deployed on The Office of Undergraduate Studies’ websites and is undergoing iterative improvement in preparation to scale across other University sites.
Approach
Web bots are typically trained on a static script that limits their ability to provide personalized responses. They can give specific answers, but those responses are often too general to be helpful. The A.I.I. and Mainstay are currently integrating AI and large language models to help Swoop learn about students' needs from inquiries and data so that it can respond more intelligently, fluidly, and accurately.
Details
This is a second iteration of Swoop that is slated to be tested in Mid October 2024 with the intent to deploy it across University sites.
Contact
Jim Agutter agutterja@design.utah.edu
Resources
Swoop is currently live on the Office of Undergraduate Studies’ website