Unibuddy, a higher education peer-to-peer engagement platform, has officially launched Assistant – an AI tool designed to support large-scale, authentic student-led conversations.
Following a successful beta phase, the tool is now fully live with 30 institutions worldwide and delivering impressive results: tripling student engagement, cutting staff workload significantly, and maintaining over 95% accuracy.
As universities face increasing pressure from tighter budgets and rising student expectations, Unibuddy said its Assistant tool offers a powerful solution to scale meaningful engagement efficiently, combining the speed of AI with the authenticity of real student voices.
- 65,000 unique students have used Assistant
- 100,000+ student questions answered automatically without requiring manual intervention
- 125% increase in students having conversations
- 60% increase in lead capture
- five hours saved per day for university staff
“Today’s students demand instant, authentic and trustworthy communication,” said Diego Fanara, CEO at Unibuddy. “Unibuddy Assistant is the first and only solution that fuses the speed of AI with the credibility of peer-to-peer guidance – giving institutions a scalable way to meet expectations without sacrificing quality or trust.”
Unibuddy has partnered with more than 600 institutions globally and has supported over 3,000,000 prospective students through the platform. As part of this extensive network, it regularly conducts surveys to uncover fresh insights. Although chatbots are now common in higher education, survey findings highlight key limitations in their effectiveness:
- 84% of students said that university responses were too slow (Unibuddy Survey, 2025)
- 79% of students said it was important that universities balance AI automation (for speed) and human interaction (for depth) while supporting them as they navigate the decision-making process (Unibuddy Survey, 2025)
- 51% of students say they wouldn’t trust a chatbot to answer questions about the student experience (Unibuddy Survey, 2024)
- 78% say talking to a current student is helpful — making them 3.5x more likely to trust a peer than a bot (Unibuddy Survey, 2025)
- Only 14% of students felt engaged by the universities they applied to (Unibuddy Survey, 2025)
Unibuddy says these finding have shaped its offering: using AI to handle routine questions and highlight valuable information, while smoothly handing off to peer or staff conversations when a personal, human connection is needed.
Buckinghamshire New University used Unibuddy Assistant to transform early-stage engagement – generating 800,000 impressions, 30,000 clickthroughs, and 10,000+ student conversations in just six months. The university saved over 2,000 staff hours and saw 3,000 referrals to students or staff.
Today’s students demand instant, authentic and trustworthy communication
Diego Fanara, Unibuddy
Meanwhile the University of South Florida Muma College of Business reported over 30 staff hours saved per month, with a 59% click-to-conversation rate and over a third of chats in Assistant resulting in referrals to student ambassador conversations.
And the University of East Anglia deployed Assistant across more than 100 web pages, as part of the full Unibuddy product suites deployment of peer-to-peer chat, with student-led content contributing to a 62% offer-to-student conversion rate compared with 34% of those who didn’t engage with Unibuddy.
