What You Need to Know About Educational Сhatbots: Examples, Benefits, Use Cases

Introduction

According to Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus, Associate Vice Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), and Senior Fellow at UPCEA, The primary key to success in the use of GenAI is to carefully develop the prompt. The second key to success is to use more than one GenAI app. A third key to success is to use Generative AI often, daily if possible. 

Through repetition, you will refine your prompt writing and determine which app is likely to give you the response you seek for the questions and tasks you have.

Chatbots that use the power of Generative Artificial Intelligence have been successfully integrated into various organizations and companies across the globe. By the end of 2024, chatbots are expected to save businesses up to 2.5 billion hours of work (Juniper Research). 

They help retailers provide tailored marketing campaigns and better customer relations. Medical organizations use them to schedule appointments and ask for symptoms. The customer success teams use chatbots to provide a better user experience. There are multiple cases when we may implement them. 

Education is one of the most popular industries where chatbots are used daily. Education chatbots powered with AI (or chat bot for education) can be used to handle many tasks: from content generation to summarizing needed information based on the provided data. Let’s dive deeper into the world of EdTech and see how AI chatbots for education can change the game.

The Purpose of Educational Chatbots

According to DataHorizzon Research, the global chatbot market in education will reach $32.4 billion by 2032, fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence products. Between 2024 and 2032, its CAGR will be at 21.6%. During this period, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa will be the main adopters of AI chatbots. Here are the latest statistics on how these solutions transform the education sphere:

• 58% of organizations claimed that chatbots helped them improve their services in 2023.
• 90% of students prefer working with ChatGPT to studying with a tutor.
• 34,700 failing students improved their grades with AI grade prediction.

These stats help us to understand the main purpose of education bots - assistance and support for all the participants of the education process. Use of chatbot in education not only makes the whole process simpler and faster but also improves its total quality thanks to the LLM features and prompt engineering.

Efficient communication plays a vital role in the successful conversion of prospective applicants into enrolled students for any college or university. The candidates are filled with inquiries about courses, fees, accommodation, and more. This period poses a significant challenge for admissions departments, as addressing the surge of questions promptly demands time and resources.

Chatbot for students offers a solution to this challenge. With NLP integration it presents a highly convenient and user-friendly option, delivering automated responses to frequently asked questions and eliminating delayed replies. One of the key advantages is that students can engage with these chatbots free of charge at any hour, catering particularly to international candidates residing in various time zones.

Types of educational chatbots 

There are many ways of use of chatbot in education as well as their types. Educational chatbots come in various types, each designed to cater to specific needs within the educational landscape. Here are some common types of educational chatbots:

• Tutoring Education Chatbots
• Admissions AI Chatbots
• AI Assistants for Education
• Language Learning Chatbots
• Administrative Chatbots
• Conversational AI Chatbots
• Educational Chatbots with Computer Vision
• Library AI Chatbots
• Feedback and Survey AI Chatbots
• Informational Chatbots
• Security Assistants

It is worth saying that these are only some examples of common chatbots as their variety is not limited. These types of teacher and student chatbot can enhance the learning experience, provide support, and streamline administrative processes in educational institutions.

Chatbot in Education Usage

Learning organizations have found many ways of using AI-powered chatbots in their daily work. Each entry on this list has pros and cons educators and students should consider to make the most of these emerging AI/ML development tools. We may even call it “chatbot university” to better understand that each chatbot for students can be used specifically as a part of this “AI University”. Here are some of the use cases that chatbot university has today.

1. Improving Student Engagement

Educational chatbots work with students through communication channels they are most familiar with. More specifically, the instant messaging and social media formats. AI-powered technologies significantly ease research and help students find the right information for their tasks and projects.

This engagement goes beyond studying new topics. AI solutions help collegegoers get instant information on deadlines, assignments, and events, ensuring they stay on track with all of their responsibilities. These products allow students to set up virtual spaces for activities beyond the classes and help them during lectures.

2. Handling Administrative Tasks

AI Chatbots for education have the huge power to streamline the administrative process for everybody involved in it. With their help, students can get information about the payment process, scholarships, course details, and campus guides. AI chatbot for education also facilitates a fast enrollment process, providing instant communication between applicants and organizations.

Students commonly use ChatGPT and education becomes easier for them many times. ChatGPT-based chatbots can also collect feedback, remind people about deadlines, and do follow-ups. Multi-language support and 24/7 availability lets them reduce the workload on the human administrative staff.

3. A Personal Tutoring

Chatbot for students can be also used as a virtual helper that offers a personal learning experience. Student chatbot makes the learning experience more personalized and tailor it to their specific needs and practices. With transformer model integration it can analyze how well individuals understand provided materials, the quality of their responses, and academic progress to provide the most efficient learning experience.

Using modern chatbots in education also benefits students with learning disabilities. This approach lets them better understand different topics and concepts. Any piece of study content can be turned into a format that most suits them. NLP-based education bots also have shown themselves to be particularly effective with neurodivergent individuals.

4. Students Chatbots for Support & Communication

The latest developments in the field of AI allow the so-called “chatbot university” to be an irreplaceable AI decision-maker in all facets of student life. It helps individuals enroll in colleges and universities, providing information about faculties, courses, and modules.

This feature allows chatbots to serve as campus guides that help people settle in and accommodate the student lifestyle. AI chatbot for education offers instant information about scholarships, facilities, library memberships, extracurriculars, and other things collegegoers might be interested in.

AI student chatbot can be also a great communication tool, especially nowadays when everyone uses a smartphone to communicate. Let’s see how it works.

An AI chatbot for student communication is a kind of digital assistant designed to enhance interaction between students. It can operate on various platforms, providing information on courses, campus events, and general inquiries. 

There is already research in educational technology that has used chatbots in higher education subjects, with satisfactory results in helping students improve their academic performance. Students who have been able to use a chatbot in some of their subjects are discovering the benefits of chatbots and are requesting that they be made available in other aspects of their academic life (Cell). The chatbot for students may have the following structure:

Developed using technologies like natural language processing (NLP), it offers a user-friendly conversation flow and can integrate with existing systems for real-time updates. Such an AI chatbot aims to streamline communication, offering support services, answering FAQs, and improving overall student engagement.

5. Assisting Educators

Students aren’t the only participants in the education process who struggle with deadlines and balancing their schedules. Teachers and college professors often turn to AI chatbots in education for assistance. While these platforms automate many mundane tasks, educators focus on tracking student progress and improving learning.

Custom-developed education bots can quickly step in and provide information about tasks, deadlines, and course-related information. They also create content and offer feedback based on each student's individual progress. These applications sometimes grade quizzes and tests, providing detailed analysis of their results.

Finally, chatbots play the role of helpers in students’ or teacher’s life today. Feel free to learn more about how it can be integrated into your process by talking to our experts. We are glad to help!

Educational Chatbots Examples

We have already learned a lot about the aims and benefits of any chat bot for education. Now, let’s move to the examples, numbers, and real use cases.

In the year 2024, AI chatbots are reshaping the landscape of the education industry through their versatile applications. Within the myriad use cases of chatbots, numerous industry-specific applications in education stand out. Institutions aiming for support in these specific areas can adopt chatbot solutions and expect noteworthy outcomes.

The game-changer for educational chatbots is the OpenAI GPT-4 model for sure.

ChatGPT Chatbots for Educational Organizations

ChatGPT is one of the best examples of closed-source LLMs. We can not deny that Chat GPT impact on education is more than obvious nowadays. ChatGPT integration into many education processes has already reached significant numbers. According to NerdyNav, about 43% of college students have used ChatGPT or similar AI tools. Moreover,  89% of them used it for homework, 53% for essays, and 48% for at-home tests.

With the release of GPT-4.0, the direct connection between ChatGPT and education has become even closer. Let me show you one of the examples of GPT-4 AI Chatbots that our Springs engineering team delivered for education purposes too. 

So, our team of experienced AI Chatbot Developers using agile development methodology and our custom Springs Approach, created a Custom AI Chatbot for multi-industries organizations. Our chat bot for education can be easily used by students/teachers at universities, colleagues, and online schools, providing such capabilities:

• Study data & content generation.
• AI multi-language translations.
• AI-powered scheduling and booking: meetings, calls, and any other activities.
• Data collection and storage.
• AI auto-replies in the onboarding process for participants/students.
• Possibility of ordering chatbot to process some functions in a specific case (based on ChatGPT functions technology).
• Leads onboarding AI flow processing
• Conversation Analytics

We have already talked about this solution in our previous post, so if you feel you would like to learn more about it in detail - you are very welcome.  

AI Assistants for Universities

Another massive part of education chatbots is filled with educational  AI Assistants. Such chatbots help teachers and students during the learning process or out-of-school activities. 

For instance, one of the most popular task automation that is frequently needed by professors and teachers - scheduling and booking. Using deep expertise in education chatbots development, our team created an Intelligent Booking AI Assistant that may help thousands of teachers, tutors, and university professors with the following features:

• Calendar AI-Managing
• Appointments Auto-scheduling
• Instant Meeting Booking
• Own Calendar Integration
• Learning Management System (LMS) Integration
• Multi Login Capacity

Overall, the mentioned chatbot can be considered a good AI assistant for universities where many people need to automate their daily workflow with the power of AI. It will help not only to speed up all the processes but also save a lot of resources that can be used more efficiently.

Final Thoughts

Generative AI has already shown significant impact to the education industry. ChatGPT and Education became “close partners” in the educational process. Natural Languge Processing opened a big opportunity for AI integration into the education and studying workflow. More and more students, teachers, tutors, and coaches starting to use education AI chatbots and assistants. 

The artificial intelligence (AI) market in the education sector market report forecasts market growth by revenue at global, regional & country levels and provides an analysis of the latest trends and growth opportunities from 2024 to 2027 (Technavio):

End-user Outlook

• Higher education
• K-12

Learning method Outlook

• Learner model
• Pedagogical model
• Domain model

Region Outlook

• North America
• Europe
• APAC
• Middle East & Africa
• South America

In conclusion, as generative AI/ML development evolves, it holds the potential to analyze extensive datasets collected by K-12 schools, higher education institutions, and corporate learning and development providers. This capability can empower these institutions to make more informed decisions regarding program development, recruitment, retention, and the continuous refinement of their offerings over time.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to build a chatbot for students?

The time to build a chatbot for students can range from 5-10 days for a simple rule-based POC version of the product to several months for more advanced AI-powered chatbots with complex features.

What is the cost of an AI Chatbot for education?

The cost of an AI chatbot for education varies widely based on complexity and features, ranging from a few thousand to several tens of thousands of dollars.

Is it secure to use chatbot in universities? 

Sure. When integrated with robust security protocols and best practices, the use of chatbots in universities can be considered secure. Implementing encryption, access controls, regular security audits, and compliance with data protection regulations are essential elements to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information within the chatbot system.