Pima Community College's chatbot rollout set the stage for scalable, AI-powered student support.
In higher education, meaningful student support isn't just about answering questions — it's about building trust, responding in real-time, and reducing the barriers that stand between students and their goals. At Pima Community College, this philosophy fueled the college's strategic rollout of Ellucian Virtual Advisor, laying a foundation for what's now possible with the next generation of AI.
Today, Virtual Advisor is more than a chatbot — it's an intelligent support system that adapts to student needs and delivers tailored responses based on institutional context. And thanks to recent AI enhancements, it does so with the kind of care and control colleges require to deliver responsive, responsible engagement.
Here's how Pima's implementation paved the way for what's next — and what the future of AI-powered student advising now looks like.
Launching a Campus-Wide Chatbot at Pima Community College
Pima Community College, a two-year open-admissions institution in Tucson, Arizona, serves a diverse student population of over 31,000 learners across five campuses. As part of a broader digital transformation, Pima adopted Ellucian Virtual Advisor to unify fragmented student support tools and streamline communication across departments.
Virtual Advisor offered immediate benefits through its seamless integration with Ellucian Student, powered by Banner, Scholarship Universe, Campus Communicator, and Student Forms.
Guided by Project Manager of IT Enterprise Systems, Anna Becker and Assistant Director of Campus Operations Julio Durazo, Pima took a meticulous, collaborative approach to implementation. A cross-campus team representing financial aid, academic advising, online education, disability resources, student outreach, and more contributed to the planning, configuration, and content development phases.
The chatbot, branded "Ask Aztec," reflected Pima's identity and values — personalized, helpful, and accessible. It launched first on internal platforms and shortly thereafter across key public-facing webpages, timed to coincide with the expiration of a previous chatbot contract.
Transforming Student Advising Across the Institution
Pima's phased approach prioritized usability, accessibility, and accuracy. By launch, the team had developed over 460 custom questions in addition to Ellucian's 850+ pre-vetted financial aid responses. Equally impactful was the integration of Student Information System (SIS) data, which enabled responses personalized with student-specific information such as GPA, major, or first name.
Live advising features further bridged the gap between automation and human connection. If a student needed personal assistance, advisors from one of five departments could seamlessly step in via synchronous chat — an intervention point that Julio Durazo notes led to a 15% increase in student interactions and a measurable decrease in phone calls and emails.
A Responsible Foundation for AI Growth
Pima's implementation succeeded not just because of the technology, but because of the care with which it was introduced. From accessibility testing to faculty training and cross-departmental governance, every step centered on building trust — with students, and between systems. This groundwork proved critical as Ellucian’s product team introduced new generative AI features designed to scale the Virtual Advisor's impact even further — while avoiding the ethical pitfalls that can undermine student confidence.
What's Next: Scalable AI with Built-in Guardrails
Virtual Advisor's new AI engine introduces a multi-layered approach to understanding student intent. It uses:
- Vectorized content matching for smarter, context-aware searches.
- Hybrid search and semantic ranking to distinguish nuanced questions (e.g., “application” for FAFSA vs. housing).
- Reduced reliance on alternative phrasing, freeing up staff from manually crafting permutations of every question. At the heart of the new offering is Content Assistant, a generative AI tool that suggests responses based on uploaded documents or trusted websites. Teams can now draft content, refine it, and bulk-generate question-and-answer sets — dramatically reducing time-to-launch for new information or seasonal campaigns.
Importantly, institutions can choose to limit responses to those reviewed and approved by Virtual Advisor or allow it to generate and send answers directly. Institutions remain in full control, with the ability to approve, edit, or discard AI-generated responses, ensuring content remains accurate with the ability to adjust the threshold for accuracy checks to fit their specific needs.
With the new generative AI features, users can quickly expand their library of pre-approved responses while receiving suggested questions and responses in bulk, streamlining the process of building a comprehensive response library.
And because Virtual Advisor is built with ethical AI principles in mind — including an internal governance review and safeguards against liability — colleges avoid the high-stakes risks that have plagued other public-sector AI tools.
24/7 Student Support That's Smart, Safe, and Scalable
Today, students can ask Virtual Advisor about financial aid eligibility, enrollment deadlines, or how to connect with a live advisor — all within the context of their personal academic journey. Whether at midnight or mid-semester, the bot is available, responsive, and informed.
Just as important: students aren't left with vague or generic answers. With real-time SIS data and institutional context, responses feel less like a search engine and more like a one-on-one conversation — one that’s scalable across thousands of users, hundreds of questions, and every phase of the student lifecycle.
Conclusion: A Model for What's Possible
Pima's thoughtful rollout of Virtual Advisor illustrates what institutions can achieve when strategy, stakeholder collaboration, and user-centered design converge. And with the latest AI enhancements, Ellucian is offering colleges a way to extend those gains — ethically, efficiently, and at scale.
In a time when every conversation matters, Virtual Advisor ensures no question goes unanswered.
