Today, technology has become deeply
integrated into university life. Students and teachers work daily with огромным количеством information — schedules, diploma formatting rules,
scientific articles, educational programs, clubs, and psychological support
services. Understanding all of this can sometimes be difficult. This is where
AI agents come to help — virtual assistants that make university life easier,
more convenient, and faster. Vadim Chvanov, Director of the Department of
Digitalization and Cybersecurity at KARIU, spoke in detail about all of this.
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— What is an AI agent in simple terms, and how is it useful in everyday university
life?
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— Simply put, an AI agent is like a smart friend who is always nearby. It can
tell you where to find the right classroom, how to format a diploma, when a
club meeting starts, or how to properly prepare an article for publication. It
can be compared to navigation in a big city: instead of getting lost and
wasting time, AI shows the shortest route and warns about “traffic jams” in the
schedule. For students and teachers, it is also a personal reference guide that
never gets tired of answering hundreds of repetitive questions every day.
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— How difficult was it to implement the AI agent system at the university?
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— Karaganda Industrial University became the first university in Kazakhstan to
open a Department of Artificial Intelligence. This means that we not only use
ready-made technologies, but also create new solutions, train future
specialists, and provide students with unique experience working with AI
directly at their university. This is an important step for us: we are
preparing professionals who will implement AI in industry, education, and
science, while the university itself is becoming a center for innovation and
experimentation with modern technologies.
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— How is the AI agent system organized at the university? Is it one bot or a
whole network of assistants?
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— In fact, it is an entire team of virtual assistants — a multi-agent system
where each digital assistant is responsible for a specific area of university
life. There is a bot that helps navigate buildings and schedules; an admissions
agent that explains specialties and required documents; an assistant for
diplomas and term papers; an academic mobility agent for internships and
exchange programs; an AI psychologist for initial student support; an
anti-corruption agent; and an extracurricular activities agent that informs
students about clubs, sports sections, and events.
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Unlike ordinary chatbots that operate according to templates, our agents use
large language models and university knowledge bases. This means they
understand context and provide accurate answers instead of simply repeating
pre-written text.
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The system is built on the principles of modularity and scalability: each agent
is an independent service with its own knowledge base, but all of them are
connected through a common SDK, event bus, and central user registry. If an
agent does not know the answer, it honestly says so and, if necessary, directs
the student to a real specialist. The entire platform operates on the
university’s own server, ensuring data control and independence from external
cloud services.
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— What are the ways to interact with AI agents?
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— In addition to the Telegram bot, the university has a touchscreen information
kiosk with voice input and voice response functions. Any visitor — an
applicant, parent, or guest — can approach the screen, ask a question in one of
three languages by voice, and immediately receive both a text and spoken
response.
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For university staff, there is a control panel with eleven modules. Through it,
employees can monitor the work of all agents, analyze student requests, manage
knowledge bases and FAQs, configure AI models, and even create new agents by
selecting the required functions from nineteen available options. This allows
the system to quickly adapt to new tasks and user needs.
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— How do students use AI agents today, and how is this different from your own
student years?
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— When I was studying, there was no internet yet. To find an article or study
guide, we had to go to the library, browse catalogs, and copy pages by hand —
it was a real quest among thousands of shelves. Today, students can get answers
in seconds through AI agents: they can check diploma formatting requirements
using AI Diploman or find a building and class schedule through AI Navigator.
Sometimes I envy modern students — so much routine work has disappeared,
leaving only the essence: learning and research.
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— Does such easy access to information mean that students will cheat more
often, and can AI replace teachers?
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— No, AI agents do not do students’ work for them and do not encourage
plagiarism. They help students understand rules, find information, and work
correctly. Teachers remain irreplaceable: they motivate, explain complex
concepts, lead discussions, and evaluate critical thinking. AI is like a
calculator: it saves time on routine tasks but does not replace the thinking
process itself.
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As a result, AI agents make university life more convenient and efficient,
freeing up more time for studying and research. However, they work together with
teachers, not instead of them.
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