Utrecht University launches its own chatbot

UU staff members who use AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Mistral, or Claude can now submit unlimited prompts to UU AI-Chat, Utrecht University’s own chatbot. 

According to the university, UU AI-Chat offers several advantages. For starters, it is based on the paid versions of ChatGPT, which are more powerful and reliable, although all Utrecht University students and staff can use it for free.

Users can also choose how powerful they want the language model to be, depending on the query size. The most powerful model available is GPT-5.6 terra. However, users should bear in mind that the more powerful the language model, the more energy it consumes. For simple queries, it is preferable to use lighter language models, which use less energy.

In terms of digital autonomy, the university retains control over what happens to the data entered because the chatbot runs on its own servers, located in Europe. The data is not used to train AI models and all conversations with the UU chatbot are private. Users cannot view each other’s chats.

Screenshot of the question users see when they log in to UU AI-Chat

UU offers students and staff various modules and courses on AI literacy. Users are warned not to blindly trust the results, as "generated information is not always complete, accurate, up to date or free from bias".

Although UU now has its own chatbot, AI use must still follow certain rules. You can find those on UU’s student website. For instance, lecturers must specify whether AI may be used in the course and, if so, how. UU has established a five-level index for this purpose. At level one, all use of AI is prohibited. If a lecturer opts for level five, students may use AI without restriction.

Andere initiatieven
De Universiteit Utrecht is niet de eerste universiteit die een eigen chatbot introduceert. De Universiteit van Amsterdam lanceerde vorig jaar al de UVA AI Chat. En ook andere onderwijsinstellingen zoals Tilburg University en Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam hebben een bot. Die laatste is voorlopig alleen voor medewerkers.

Ook SURF, de ict-coöperatie voor onderwijs en onderzoek, is ermee bezig. Samen met Npuls werkt de organisatie aan de ontwikkeling van EduGenAI, een landelijk platform voor mbo-, hbo- en wo-instellingen voor “voor veilig en verantwoord gebruik van generatieve AI”. Volgens een woordvoerder lopen daarvoor momenteel pilots.