Skilly, an AI chatbot developed by Pittsburgh-based startup SkillBuilder.io, will soon assist Point Park’s admissions office in responding to prospective students’ questions, according to Marlin Collingwood, vice president of enrollment management, in the university’s September leadership report.
“The admission office is exploring AI and adding a fresh staff member named Skilly to the team,” Collingwood wrote in the report. “Soon, Skilly will be available to assist students with general admission questions as they research why Point Park University is the right fit for them.”
Collingwood told The Globe he hopes Skilly will be ready for use by admissions at the end of November. Lou Corsaro, a university spokesperson, declined to provide a figure on the contract between SkillBuilder and Point Park as a matter of policy.
Collingwood said Skilly was referred to as a “staff member” in the leadership report at the advising of Kit Mueller, a cofounder of SkillBuilder.
SkillBuilder cofounder Kit Mueller and CEO, Adam Paulisick, personally advised university officials on Skilly through a connection with President Chris Brussalis, whom the two had known from their collective time at Carnegie Mellon University.
Mueller said he refers to Skilly as a staff member because it makes it easier for prospective users to “get their head around it.”
Operating Skilly is “very akin to onboarding a new colleague,” Mueller said.
“So, [on the] first day it comes in and it learns how you and your team speak,” Mueller said, “and then … [your] unique nomenclature and terminology. And then maybe in that afternoon it’s listening to the voice of a customer.”
Collingwood said the Office of Admissions plans to train Skilly on common questions asked by prospective students, both so it can begin to help operations staff in admissions answer those questions and so it can inform the university’s marketing.
“We don’t have enough people that somebody sits there 24 hours a day,” Collingwood said.
Both he and Brussalis said that there are no plans to replace existing staff in admissions with Skilly.
They also said they don’t plan on training the chatbot on any student or university data outside of the admissions office. And officials clarified that if inquiring users do not want to speak to Skilly, they can ask to be connected with a human operator.
Mueller said the university’s planned use of Skilly fits its pitch.
“For the admissions department, this should sound and reflect the true voice, the context, the culture [and] the nuance of the team,” he said. “Versus just kind of a generic platform that’s out there kind of just aggregating information.”
Collingwood said he was particularly interested in Skilly’s ability to point out gaps in the university’s marketing.
“[Skilly is] going to come back and say to us, ‘You’re getting a lot of questions about financial aid . . . should your messaging about financial aid on your website, in your marketing materials [or] in your advertising be more specific?’” Collingwood said.
And officials clarified that if inquiring users do not want to speak to Skilly, they can ask to be connected with a human operator.
Collingwood added that Skilly will be supervised by Madison Reese, Assistant Director of Admissions. She was unavailable to provide comment by press time.
“We did not want something that suddenly it’s gonna go off on its own,” Collingwood said of Reese’s supervision. He added that he hopes Skilly will allow the admissions’ operations team to be more productive.
“I think their hope is they’re going to have more time to do the work they’re actually paid to do,” Collingwood said, “and that they like to do, which is process applications, send out acceptance letters, look over transcripts, that kind of thing.”
Brussalis said he hopes to leverage the use of Skilly to lower the university’s operating costs, but clarified that did not mean replacing any human employees with it.
“It’s a leverage tool, right?” Brussalis said. “So, any department that is trying to leverage — trying to communicate with — a large number of stakeholders; I think this particular tool is outstanding for that.”
