Exploring Pathify’s GenAI Chatbot
Pathify’s Chief Technology Officer, Chris Hagan, and Product Manager, Jeff Ledoux, discussed and demonstrated the evolution of Pathify’s GenAI Chatbot — from initial design and beta testing program to its current powerful capabilities. Focused on delivering more than answers pulled from a knowledge base, the Chatbot connects students with verified, personalized, real-time support — ensuring they feel supported and empowered to navigate their higher ed journey.
Enhancing User Engagement
The GenAI Chatbot elevates the student experience within the Pathify ecosystem by bridging the gap between student needs and available institutional resources, noted Ledoux. With extensive providers (Chatbot integrations) directly connected to higher ed’s most popular systems, the Chatbot obtains verified answers by accessing institution-specific systems such as SIS and LMS. Designed for flexibility, “the Chatbot operates both behind authentication with Pathify’s Engagement Hub and — soon — will support unauthenticated use,” Ledoux explained.
On the backend, the Chatbot boasts fully branded capabilities. “Avatar, colors, name, welcome message, you name it,” said Ledoux.
Improving Productivity (Without Judgment)
The Chatbot enables students to complete tasks and forms, ask questions or consume resources without leaving the portal environment, reducing digital friction. In the Pathify hub, a student asks the Chatbot, “What is my GPA?”, “How do I get a new dining card?” or “What is a Bursar?” in the safe, non-judgmental space the Chatbot offers.
Hagan shared an outcome from the beta program, “Once a student used [the Chatbot], they tended to return, often exploring quite vulnerable areas or topics — questions they may have hesitated to ask a person in authority.”
Admins & Analytics
Behind the scenes, portal administrators leverage the Chatbot’s robust analytics tools to track usage patterns, identify popular queries and provide insights into student needs, offering valuable data to drive institutional services. Ledoux illustrated in the Admin Center, “Administrators adjust the relevance and weights of Chatbot content to deliver highly accurate answers or cast a wide net for more comprehensive, broad answers.”
“From the get-go, GenAI reduces maintenance for [the customer], especially when managing pages and FAQs. It automatically processes and integrates this information, enabling the Chatbot to deliver more relevant answers,” Ledoux added.
Providing Confident Support
Hagan emphasized, “It is a critical part of digital literacy in the modern age to ensure [educational administrators] are equipping people to check their sources.” Institutions seamlessly connect information from FAQs, external websites, events, groups, and files — while safeguarding sensitive student data. “Balances, GPAs and other critical, private data points are never shared with Google,” Hagan noted, highlighting the thoughtful design behind the Chatbot and Pathify’s commitment to secure, responsible adoption.
Key Takeaways
For faculty and staff, the Chabot offers a powerful solution to streamline repetitive, time-consuming interactions. By nudging students to an automated tool for accurate, 24/7 responses, institutions alleviate the burden of managing emails and long help desk queues.
Hagan and Ledoux are committed to pushing the envelope further, with more providers and features — such as live agent handoff — on the horizon. Feedback from beta customers played a pivotal role in shaping the Chatbot’s development. Ledoux expressed, “The Chatbot would be nothing without input from Pathify’s beta customers: St. John’s University, Nazarene Technological Seminary, George Washington University, Concordia University-Irvine, and Chaffey College.”
“Pathify offers a differentiated Chatbot experience,” Ledoux concluded. And with proven success, the Pathify Chatbot takes the user experience to new heights.
Check out the new Chatbot in action and share the excitement! Watch the recording for the full demo.
