Artificial Intelligence

Bilingual AI Chatbot Helps Colleges Communicate with Spanish Language Speakers

• By Rhea Kelly
• 10/15/19

Ocelot, a provider of conversational chatbots for higher ed institutions, has announced a bilingual English-Spanish chatbot. Designed to help colleges communicate with native Spanish-language speaking students and parents, the tool can be customized with a school's colors, mascot and other user interface features.

The chatbot runs on an IBM artificial intelligence engine, and its Spanish-language AI content libraries "build on Ocelot's work over the past two decades creating multi-lingual publications and videos for colleges," the company said in a news announcement. Rather than using automated translation, the bot has been "trained with vocabulary and terminology consistent with U.S. Department of Education Spanish guidelines. (Additional content is available in Farsi, Creole, Cantonese and Mandarin.)

"Our mission is to make a better life more accessible for students," said Ocelot CEO Damon Vangelis, in a statement. "This new innovation is a great resource for parents of first-generation college students who struggle to understand complex topics like financial aid and housing."

For more information, visit the Ocelot site.