The assistant is part of what a university’s Varsio pilot launches with. This page describes how it is set up to work.
They ask, it checks, it does
- They ask. A student types a question in their own words, such as “Is there a quiet room near my 1pm seminar?”
- It checks. It reads the pages and systems you approve, and shows which ones it used.
- It does. If the answer leads to an action, such as booking a room or reporting a fault, it is set up to ask the student to confirm first, with a card the student taps.
What it reads
The sources your staff switch on in the admin dashboard: your pages and systems, and the guides your staff upload as PDFs and handbooks. Staff can turn each source on or off, and see what students ask, which can show where information is missing or hard to find.
What it leaves to your team
Some matters belong with your staff. The assistant is set up to refer these to your team and direct the student to the right service:
- marks and grades;
- attendance;
- visa attendance;
- payments;
- anything personal.
For wellbeing and harassment, it directs students to your official reporting route rather than taking a report itself.
When it gets something wrong
AI can make mistakes. Answers link the sources they came from, so a student can check them, and your staff can see the questions it was asked.
Which AI model it uses
The pilot’s DPIA pack will name the model the assistant runs on and where it is processed, alongside every supplier that handles student data.
Student data
“Never trained on student data.” is a term in our data processing agreement. How we protect student data covers hosting, deletion and the rest.
The ICO says a data protection impact assessment is required where processing uses innovative technology, including AI, combined with at least one other high-risk criterion from the European guidelines. An assistant for students is likely to need one, so plan for it with your data protection officer; our DPIA pack, ready before launch, will help.