IBM has secured a bid to build an AI virtual assistant for Penn State students to give them easier access to school services.
The tech giant said In a press release on 17 February, that the virtual assistant named MyResource will be built with watsonx, IBM’s portfolio of AI products.
When finished and deployed, the AI assistant will streamline details about campus resources and how to seek them for the nearly 90,000 Penn State students.
Improving access to campus services
Having access to services on campus can be challenging for some students, especially freshers. This makes it necessary to have a form of “assistant” to help bring these services to students.
Students at Penn State realized this need and called for the building of the AI virtual assistant to improve access to academic advising, health and wellness, and financial aid, which the university management agreed to.
The collaboration between IBM and the institution will produce a concierge to help students navigate the many resources available to them, help increase support, and further advance satisfaction for the student body.
Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said:
“At Penn State, student success is our priority, and this is an exciting step toward continuing to enhance the lives and experiences of students across our University. We’re thrilled to collaborate with IBM to leverage advancements like generative AI, a critical tool to help us create a more student-centered experience, remove barriers, improve retention rates and further achieve a sense of belonging for all Penn Staters by allowing our students to navigate our institution seamlessly and intuitively.”
MyResource will be built using the conversational AI capabilities of watsonx Assistant, while Watsonx.ai will be used to host, train, and tune foundation models with data provided by Penn State.
That way, the system will be able to promptly generate answers and recommendations with AI guardrails to detect and remove potentially harmful language or sensitive data.
Also leveraging the conversational search capabilities within watsonx Discovery, the tool will help improve the quality and accuracy of the responses given by MyResource.
The AI-powered virtual assistant is expected to be deployed in the fall semester and IBM intends to extend the technology to other universities.
ReadNext
