The challenge, approach & outcome.
- 01Challenge
Faculty were drowning in repetitive student questions about course content, deadlines, and resources. Generic LLM tools hallucinated on course-specific material. The provider needed an agent that was reliably accurate on the curriculum.
- 02Approach
Fine-tuned an open-weight Llama 3.1 model on the curriculum corpus, supplemented with RAG over course documents for current information. Built a refusal layer when the model wasn't confident, plus a faculty review queue for unclear questions.
- 03Outcome
Over 2,400 student questions answered weekly with 4.8/5 satisfaction. Faculty triage time dropped 65%, freeing them for higher-value teaching. The agent has been the platform's top-engaged feature for six consecutive months.

