OIT Office of Information Technology
| Menu

BuffBot Public Chatbot

About

The BuffBot Public Chatbot service provides a modern, gen AI-powered chatbot with 24/7 availability. The service is run on the Goodkind / Niche Engage platform, a tool built on topics specifically developed for K-12 and Higher Education. The chatbot can be trained on public information sources (websites, pdf’s, and video content) to be determined by individual University of Colorado Boulder teams based on requirements of your department.

Benefits

The BuffBot Public Chatbot service is available to campus departments at no cost since it is provided by OIT as a service. BuffBot provides a benefit to both students and staff, reducing response times on student inquiries and alleviating workload for staff to focus on more complex and value-added tasks.

From the backend perspective, the platform does not require a time-consuming training process and has a user-friendly admin interface, built-in analytics, and continuous model improvements.

Who can get it

This service is available to all campus departments and is accessible by anyone who accesses websites that render the BuffBot.

Get Started

The first step is to determine whether the BuffBot could be a good fit for your specific needs.

Sample questions of what the BuffBot CAN support (Public):

  • How do I change my mailing address?
  • What are some ways to make friends on campus?
  • How do I report a power outage in my classroom?

Example questions BuffBot CANNOT support (Authenticated):

  • How many credits do I need to graduate?
  • Who is my advisor?
  • What are my academic holds right now?
 

If you believe that your unit is a good fit for BuffBot, complete our interest form.

Other things we recommend to prepare readiness:

  • Begin to think about which of your websites on you would like to implement BuffBot.
  • Analyze content on these websites for accuracy and update as needed. The quality of the chatbot’s answers is directly correlated to the accuracy of data on your public-facing website and its related content.
  • Brainstorm a list of FAQ’s, test questions and answers.

Additional resources