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Murphy Hall, the home of UCLA Admissions and Financial Aid, is pictured. (Daily Bruin file photo)
UCLA launched an AI-powered virtual assistant Aug. 28 to give students and applicants quicker answers to admissions and financial aid questions.
The university announced BruinChat on a Linkedin communication Monday. BruinChat provides 24/7 assistance, according to the Digital and Technology Solutions website, and is set to replace the university’s former chatbot “Ask Joe.”
The admissions and information technology teams found ways student and staff experiences could be improved from the previous model with BruinChat, said Anna Ahearn, the product manager in the financial aid and admissions pod of UCLA’s DTS.
Jesus Ramirez, the director of student products for UCLA IT services, said legacy chatbots like “Ask Joe” relied on static information that was manually updated, making them susceptible to being outdated or inaccurate. Because admissions and financial aid policies change frequently, he added, UCLA needed a more dynamic system to ensure students receive reliable, up-to-date answers.
“We were really thinking about what is out there that could really help us make sure that what we have in front of the students is up to date and accurate,” Ramirez said.
The development of BruinChat began in spring 2024 when the team first began to notice issues in the old model, Ramirez said.
BruinChat is a partnership between Academic Technology – a unit within Digital and Technology Solutions – and Enrollment Management, which oversees Admissions and Financial Aid, Ahearn said. She added that the project included the university’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer, the Digital Foundry team and the Business Information Technology sector.
DTS ultimately selected Gecko, a vendor used by UC Irvine and UC Riverside, to power the system, Ramirez added.
The team piloted a beta version of BruinChat in spring 2025 within Enrollment Management before the August launch, Ramirez said. Beta testers who submitted early feedback said they wanted to know if the tool could consistently provide accurate, up-to-date information, he added.
After the pilot, Ramirez said that DTS refined BruinChat, ensuring students could find information more seamlessly without needing to navigate dozens of sites. Since its launch, the pilot also has improved its accuracy rates by about 20% while also producing a 73% increase in conversations and 53% increase in questions answered, according to the DTS website.
A key improvement from the previous chatbot was making equity and accessibility central to the project, Ramirez said. With UCLA’s diverse student body in mind, DTS aimed to build a tool that could support international students, those in different time zones and families whose first language may not be English, he added.
“We had some key partners that, you know, they had their like, native dialect, and they were using that native dialect with the AI and speaking to it,” Ramirez said. “You should have seen their smile on their face, they were so happy.”
Ahearn said BruinChat relies on UCLA websites and vetted sources to keep its information accurate and up to date. If the system can’t confidently answer a question, it redirects students to the appropriate office for human support and uses the information in a feedback loop, she added.
“We do have staff that go through and review,” Ahearn said. “Anything that comes in there’s there’s an ability to add a smiley face at the end or an angry face, depending on how you feel about the conversation.”
Ahearn said DTS is in contact with other UCLA groups – such as the registrar’s office and division of graduate education – about possibly expanding the tool beyond the financial aids and admissions office.
“For us here it’s really thinking about (a) long term vision is really creating a solution that’s going to enable that seamless student support,” Ramirez said. “Making sure it’s available, making sure it’s inclusive, and making sure that all the products we deploy are really focused and student centered.”
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