Conversational AI is emerging in all aspects of campus life, benefiting student, faculty, and staff.

1. CONVERSATIONAL
AI IN HIGHER
EDUCATION

2. As the use of to Conversational Artificial
Intelligence (AI) like Siri, Alexa, and
Google has increased in our personal
lives and homes, it is also emerging
in all aspects of campus life,
benefiting university students,
faculty, and staff.
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WHAT IS CONVERSATIONAL AI
IN HIGHER EDUCATION?
OUR DEFINITION….
“Conversational AI capabilities
interact with students, professors, and
administrative staff, harnessing the
power of Artificial Intelligence to
inform, support, and advise, helping
with their tasks, challenges
and goals”

4. Source: MindmeldCopyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved. 4
THE RISE OF VOICE: WHAT’S DRIVING IT?
Demand for voice activated
interactions, through the use of
conversational AI, are exponentially
growing.

5. NO NEED TO
CHANGE USERS’ HABITS
The challenge of a channel shift can
be tackled by integrating voice bots
into an existing telephony system, so
that benefits can be realized more
easily.
MORE NATURAL
INTERACTION
Spoken conversation is a natural way
to interact with each other. It’s faster,
friendlier, and more direct than using
text-based channels.
TREND TOWARDS
MULTI-MODAL
Combining voice-driven interaction
with a screen to display
complementary information can
provide a rich user experience.
COMMUNICATION
ON A HUMAN LEVEL
Traditional user interfaces need users
to adapt their behavior and learn how
to interact with a computer. Using
spoken natural language, users can
communicate on human terms.
ACCESSIBLE FOR
NEW DEMOGRAPHICS
Voice can be more accessible for
users who struggle with standard
computer interfaces, such as the
elderly or persons with disabilities.
HANDS-FREE OPENS
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Voice can change the way people
work, such as factory or
laboratory workers who wear
gloves and cannot interact with a
standard keyboard or buttons.
Source: Mindmeld 5Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved.

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IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT
COSTS SAVINGS
CONVERSATIONAL AI CAN HAVE A POSITIVE
IMPACT ON THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE, ENGAGING
STUDENTS IN A DIGITAL FORMAT THAT IS ALREADY
FAMILIAR.
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7. Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved. 7Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved.
VOICE IN
THE DORM
AI ADVISING CHATBOT TA ENROLLMENT
Amazon dots were
provided to select students
at three R1 schools. While
Alexa initially answered
simple questions, the
universities found that
students want
personalized answers to
questions such exam
dates and teacher hours.
Students also wanted
campus information such
as cafeteria menus.
Through machine learning
and AI, historical data was
analyzed for the computer
science department to
understand what
combination of courses
and times led to student
success. Scheduling could
then be provided through a
virtual assistant.
A professor created a
virtual teaching assistant
(TA) without telling
students. At the end of the
semester, the TA received
higher satisfaction
scores than the human
TAs.
AI and a virtual assistants
were used to engage
incoming freshmen,
answer questions, and
“nudge” them to complete
activities before fall
classes. The school saw a
significant positive impact
on enrollment.

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BENEFITS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Improved speed of service as first
contact with student does not use
human intervention
Reduction of
Contact Center
Traffic
On average, call AI solutions deliver
60-80% cost saving compared to
human powered service centers
Fulfilment of new
Requests at
Reduced Cost
Keeping up with peak demand and
surges driven by the demands of
today’s student (24x7)
Ability to meet
Student Life
Cycle Demands
24/7/365 access to information and
ability to address various language
needs
Increased
Service Hours
and Languages
When integrated with the University’s
operating model, conversation AI has
realized significant retention improvements
Improved
Retention
Conversational AI capabilities will soon be
able to complete the role of course tutor
Increase
Learning
Outcomes
Conversational AI allows institution
employees to focus on more impactful
activities (advising vs. class schedules)
Focus on
Strategic
Activities
Enable administrators to focus on strategic
objectives using analytics to drive decision
making
Analytics
& Focus on
Outcomes
Alerts, messages, advanced warning when
information is available (open classes, test
schedules, professor open hours)
Proactive
and Timely
Response

9. 9
CONVERSATIONAL AI MORE THAN TECHNOLOGY
TIME TO TRANFORM
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To achieve the full potential of
conversational AI and permanent
desired outcomes, universities need
to address more than just the
technological capabilities of the
conversational AI tool.

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PEOPLE
ROLES IMPACTED BY AI EMERGING ROLES
BACK OFFICE SUPPORT
IT Helpdesk, HR and Finance, Student
Recruiting
STUDENT SERVICES
Advisors, Student Services Staff, Teacher
Assistants, Athletic Departments
AI ENGINEERS
(AI modelers, trainer, testers, etc.)
AI LEGAL EXPERTS
(AI Legal experts, Responsible AI expert, etc.)
DATA EXPERTS
Data scientists
DESIGNERS & ENGINEERS
(UX designer, Interface designer,
Full stack engineer, etc.)
CONTENT CREATORS
(Conversational AI designer, Voice UX
designer, Knowledge Engineers, Curators, etc.)
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Conversational AI is impacting the higher education workforce
as its capabilities mature. This will create social and economic
challenges but will also bring promising opportunities as new
roles emerge.

11. 11
KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT
Integration with a knowledge
base requires continual
maintenance of FAQ’s and
associated and relevant
information for consistent and
accurate responses
Identify when and how to
prompt student self-service
Address billing or IT requests
Hand-offs with customer
service agents when needed
Assistance with technology
issues and defects, outages,
and downtime
Integration into new omni-
channel capabilities
SUPPORT MODEL
INTEGRATION WITH
STUDENT SERVICES /
ADMINISTRATION
PROCESS
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Strong governance model is needed across the university to
drive permanent business outcomes.

12. Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved. 12
APPLIED INSIGHTS
Using applied insights will bring competitive advantages to
improving student performance.
Data available through robust AI capabilities will enable
universities to improve student experiences and intervene
as needed.
Examples may include:
• Improving on-campus services based on questions asked
• Enabling advisors to focus on key interventions
• Predicting student behavior during non-classroom hours
• Enhancing course and facility planning

13. HOW ACCENTURE
CAN HELP YOU
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14. 1 Reinvent the student relationship
2
Define personality as an extension of your
brand
3 Speak human but don’t pretend to be one
4
Design conversations for voice first and around
the context of use
5 Don’t underestimate the challenge of adoption
6
Define a clear bot ecosystem, security and
ownership
7 Be clear about the state of your knowledge
8 Design with smooth human handovers in mind
9
Train the natural language processing (NLP)
the right way with the right people
10
Get the right metrics in place to continuously
improve your bot
Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved. 14
ACCENTURE’S 10
GOLDEN RULES FOR
CONVERSATIONAL AI
Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Getting started quickly with
conversational AI is easy, but getting
started well (considering the ongoing
training, the growth into a sustainable
ecosystem of bots and the long term
end-user impact and experience) is
much harder.
Our 10 Golden Rules cover the key
strategic, design, and engineering
decisions for successful
implementations.

15. Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved. 15
THE ACCENTURE HIGHER EDUCATION
CONVERSATIONAL AI PRACTICE
Global expertise in rapidly evolving
technology and data science with
the organizational change expertise
to achieve your universities
desired outcomes.

16. 16Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved.Copyright © 2019 Accenture. All rights reserved.
AI EXPERTISE DATA SCIENCE
ORGANIZATIONAL
DESIGN
INDUSTRY
EXPERTISE
Our Global Network of AI
Experts, Tech Labs,
Innovation Centers and
Liquid Studios bring
ready-made learning
assets to support
transformational AI
programs.
Our higher education
data science lab in
Columbus, OH brings
industry data science
expertise to enable our
clients to use data to drive
desired outcomes.
Accenture’s world-class
organizational design
capabilities brings
expertise in how
universities can build AI
proficiency into their
organization to sustain
the transformation.
Over 500 industry
experts in transforming
university operations
through business process
and technology
transformation programs.

17. WHY ACCENTURE?
WE HAVE INVESTED $600 MILLION IN
DEVELOPING A FULL SUITE OF AI
ASSETS, DESIGNED FOR RAPID
IMPLEMENTATION. WE HAVE SERVED
THESE ASSETS TO 50+ OF THE
FORTUNE 500.
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THOUGHT
LEADERSHIP
WORLD
LEADING
ACCELERATORS
BEST IN CLASS
PARTNER
ECOSYSTEM
POWERFUL INNOVATION
ARCHITECTURE &
DELIVERY
Our leading AI community
of practice
Our Conversational AI
Platform, a Technology
Agnostic Solution that
shortens deployment time
by 1-3 months
Our strong relationships
with key AI players in the
field
• UK Liquid Studio
• Dublin AI COE
• Tech Labs Palo Alto
• Tech Labs Sophia
• IDC Innovation Centre

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CAPABILITIES, PLEASE CONNECT WITH:
About Accenture
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linkedin.com/in/jonathan-fry-a158551/
@jonathanfryacn
Jonathan Fry
Head of Education
North America
jonathan.a.fry@accenture.com
Learn more at https://www.accenture.com/us-en/ai-health-public-service-index#education.