Ivy . ai : advancing AI in higher education
Mark McNasby , CEO , Ivy . ai discusses the company ’ s natural language omni-channel AI , as well its partnership with the University at Buffalo Mark McNasby , CEO , Ivy . ai has been an EdTech entrepreneur for the last 20 years . “ I started a company in 2001 called OptimalResume where we sold into the career centers at universities .” One of the challenges McNasby found his customers facing was that students weren ’ t coming to the career center , “ so we came up with this idea for my second business called br . im , which was basically a virtual collaboration platform , allowing somebody who was in the career center to work with students who are remote ”.
He co-founded Ivy . ai in 2016 , of which he is CEO , a natural language omni-channel AI chatbot , available on websites , SMS , Facebook messenger , Amazon Alexa , and even email . “ When someone asks the chatbot a question we compare what they ’ ve asked to a large database of questions and data that we ’ ve used to train the model . Once the bot understands what the person is asking , it provides them with a particular answer ,” he says . “ Ivy . ai has two main goals . One is the dissemination of information - someone asks a question , we give them an answer - but it is also very useful for collecting information . For example , perhaps for a prospective applicant interested in attending a school the bot can ask them for their contact information , which can be implemented into the engagement strategy that the school has .” McNasby added that AI chatbots also collect valuable transactional data that provide a real-time feedback loop as to what is most relevant to students and when . Ivy . ai ’ s partnership with the University at Buffalo “ One of the main problems that we solve is that Ivy . ai levels the playing field for all different types of students . Student equality is a big theme which is tightly related to accessibility . So our chatbot creates the same level of service and answers for students regardless of their circumstance .” In partnering with the University at Buffalo , Ivy . ai is helping the university to achieve its vision of making information accessible to anyone wherever they are . “ The pandemic essentially highlighted some deficiencies for the university , and how they were delivering their services to stakeholders who don ’ t necessarily have equal access to technology and systems . Part of their strategy of digital transformation is to use a chatbot to make all information accessible to all users . So their plan is essentially to start with the IT help desk , and then ultimately roll it out to the wider campus through a departmental deployment strategy .”