Meet Mahi-Bot 🐟, the Cal State Channel Island Extended University’s AI 24/7 friendly guide. Inspired by Ekho, the dolphin, and powered by Playlab, this chatbot is designed to support prospective and current students, international students, and the OLLI community after hours.

Why Mahi-Bot?

We needed an AI tool that was both cost-effective (free, in this case) and capable of delivering the same functionality as more sophisticated and expensive platforms. With Playlab, we could easily create and update prompts, training Mahi-Bot to respond to a wide range of questions based on our knowledge base. For the past six months of use, it has learned from real user interactions and adjusted responses to match the context of each conversation.

Who Does Mahi-Bot Help?

Anyone looking for answers through Extended University! The original concept was to improve inquiry response time (ideally 24/7) while reducing email or phone inquiries for information available on the Extended University website. This would include prospective student questions about academic programs, current students looking for resources or contact information, individuals seeking more details about classes or certificate programs, and even our Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) folks wanting to find out the event calendar. It can answer questions internally for staff or others who may have limited information about Extended University and are trying to find a quick answer on the website. Launching Mahi-Bot provided an additional unexpected benefit for our EU team – the ability to validate website content and currency!

The First Six Months

Since launching in September 2024, Mahi-Bot has handled over 390 interactions, averaging 60 monthly chats, mostly from prospective students. The top categories include program details, admissions, and student resources, with the most engagement from our undergraduate online completion programs in Business, Health Science, and Psychology. To ensure Mahi-Bot continues to provide the most updated information, we’ve built an audit and review process in Airtable. This system helps us log interactions, track responses, and maintain accuracy. A total of 65 interactions (about 17%) resulted in prompt updates, helping to improve future answers. We continue to adjust prompts and collaborate with subject matter experts to review flagged responses to make improvements or provide additional information. 

Unexpected Wins

Mahi-Bot answers questions and has become a valuable internal resource. Reviewing user interactions, we’ve identified gaps in our website content and gained insights to improve overall website content. We’ve expanded our chatbot’s knowledge base to cover previously missed topics and utilize Mahi-Bot to help respond to frequently asked questions more efficiently. Another added benefit is the ability to link user interactions with internal resources. When users provide personalized details or reference recent applications, we can cross-reference this information in our Airtable CRM to quickly connect them with internal staff for a more personalized follow-up response. 

What’s Next

Once Google Drive integration becomes available in Playlab, we plan to streamline our Airtable to Playlab process to create a seamless audit and review process. We’re also collecting historical data to better assess Mahi-Bot’s effectiveness and impact compared to pre-launch trends. We are additionally looking into creative ways Playlab might support other students’ needs as they get closer to graduation, such as by providing resources for career readiness and workforce preparation.

Try It for Yourself

You can chat with Mahi-Bot and learn all about Extended University.