The Full Story
University of California, Irvine (UCI), facing an application load of over 134,000 first year applicants, realised that their admissions team could not keep up with the consistently high volume of repetitive inquiries, especially given limited staffing. To solve this, they turned to Gecko’s chatbot solution, deploying “Peter the Anteater” via a five day setup. This tool began answering frequently asked questions from prospective students, without requiring daily staff intervention.
Soon after launch, UCI expanded chatbot usage into its Financial Aid office, giving broader coverage to student concerns. Over 24,000 questions were answered, many out of office hours, helping students get timely responses even when staff weren’t actively online. This ensured that student experience remained strong, while freeing admission personnel from repetitive tasks so they could instead focus on more strategic, high impact communications.
The success of the bot showed that with minimal implementation time and staff, it’s possible to maintain responsiveness at scale. UCI’s experience underlines that technology can supplement capacity, preserve service, and sustain an institution’s values, like timely, accessible communication, even in challenging growth phases.