In the 90 days after the University of Cape Town (UCT) upgraded its rule-based EduBot chatbot with AI on 28 May 2025, 43,600 unique users engaged with it, of whom 28,372 were prospective undergraduate students (65% of users) and 7,691 prospective postgraduate students and 245,000 AI-powered answers were delivered, with an average of 19 messages per conversation. EduBot received 3,823 user ratings and achieved a 4.8/5 star rating and a 97% satisfaction score. The percentage of students requesting human assistance dropped from 11% before AI (August 2021 to 27 May 2025) to 8% in the first 90 days after launch, a 28% reduction in human handoff requests. Live chat requests fell from 6% to 3.3% and support ticket submissions decreased from 6% to 4.7%. According to the release, 93% of users had their questions answered without requiring human intervention. Dr Riashna Sithaldeen, project lead at UCT, said: "The AI upgrade has reduced routine questions so that staff can now deal with complex cases."
The earlier rule-based chatbot had processed over 6.8 million messages from 277,000 unique users with an 84% self-service resolution rate, but "I want to speak to a human" consistently ranked in the top five student queries. Students wanted natural conversation rather than menu navigation, and staff were constantly adding and maintaining questions. UCT's biggest concern was accuracy, since the menu-based system guaranteed reliability because every response was scripted by staff. UCT has been a SIS Global client since 2021.
After extensive collaboration and testing, UCT decided to upgrade to AI on 28 May 2025. Rather than replacing its established system, the AI enhancement built on proven infrastructure that students already knew and trusted. EduBot was trained on institutional knowledge, including official documents, student resources and website content. Staff only needed to provide data sources and links, which EduBot processed into accurate responses.
The release describes multilingual capabilities supporting over 100 languages, and reports 65 different languages detected and supported in use. 59% of messages were sent outside regular office hours. The users also included 6,000 international students and current students across all academic levels.
Mitchell Hawley, Founder and Managing Director of Verge AI, said: "UCT's experience shows that AI does not need to compromise accuracy to deliver a better student experience." UCT is exploring short courses for lifelong learners, piloting AI chatbots for entire academic faculties, and experimenting with AI-powered internal staff support tools.