The Full Story
The University of Birmingham was the first Russell Group university to open a campus in Dubai, extending its undergraduate and postgraduate offering to students in the region and beyond. Supporting recruitment, admissions and student enquiries across multiple time zones presents a unique challenge, particularly for a campus serving a highly international audience.
The Dubai campus prides itself on delivering a strong 24/7 support model, mirroring the experience offered in the UK. To achieve this, the team introduced Gecko’s AI chatbot, allowing students and prospective applicants to access information at any time of day or night.
“A lot of our prospective international students live in different time zones to us,” explains Sally Gough, Digital Marketing Specialist at the University of Birmingham Dubai. “It’s natural that we get a lot of out-of-hours chatbot conversations and it’s impressive that Gecko is able to handle them so well.”
Student enquiries in Dubai are particularly detailed. Applicants often ask questions about employability, career progression and how studying will fit around work, especially as there is no student finance system in place locally. “Choosing to study here is a big purchase decision,” says Sally, “and that brings a lot more questions from parents and students.”
Expectations around response times are also higher. “In Dubai, it’s widely accepted that you can contact any organisation and expect a reply within minutes,” Sally explains. “That’s the sort of response times our applicants and students expect from us and we can deliver that with the Gecko chatbot.”
Between July 2024 and February 2025, the chatbot handled 9,120 conversations, saving 1,081 working hours, equivalent to 45 working days. Nearly two thirds of these conversations took place outside standard working hours, with weekends accounting for a third of all traffic.
The chatbot has also helped improve the university’s website. By reviewing the questions students ask, the team can identify gaps or unclear content and update pages accordingly. “It helped us understand where the website needed improving,” says Sally, ensuring the chatbot continues to deliver accurate answers.
When a question cannot be resolved automatically, students are directed to a Gecko form that routes the enquiry to the appropriate team, maintaining continuity of support.
Beyond the chatbot, the Dubai campus also uses Gecko for email campaigns, open day registrations and virtual events, and continues to explore new features each semester. “Our student numbers are growing all the time,” Sally concludes. “Gecko is helping us to communicate with people all around the world at any time of the day or night.”