By Susanne Clement Justesen, AAU Communication and Public Affairs. 
Photo: PrimeTime

What happens when an ambitious top management, a visionary new AI team, Study Service staff, Team Web and Digital Media staff and test subjects from upper secondary commercial (HHX) and technical (STX) schools join forces? They create a groundbreaking AI tool to assist the programme search, helping potential students sharpen their choice of a study programme at Aalborg University. 

The tool is called the AI Study Selector, and is one of AAU's latest development projects in artificial intelligence. 

The AI Study Selector consists of a database of AAU's Bachelor's programmes and a database with all the admission requirements, superimposed with a language model. The latter means that the study programme selector works like a chatbot.

AAU is a frontrunner

According to digitalization partner Bo Hvass Pedersen at IT Services, the study programme selector is so smart that it is considered the next generation of education search tools used by other universities and Uddannelsesguiden.dk.  

"Building a language model into the study programme selector makes it possible to interview the user in the search process, and in a language they understand. This means that if it cannot answer the question asked, it tries to ask the user a more in-depth question so that it can give as precise an answer as possible," he says.

This approach is appreciated by the test subjects.

"I think it's pretty impressive, also just that it comes up with fairly broad examples. I think it works very well. I'm quite surprised by that," says Elias, STX test subject.

Jailbreak attempt

It was important to the developers at AAU IT Services that the study programme selector could answer as well as possible and within the framework of AAU educational offerings. To ensure that it only searches the databases of Bachelor’s programmes and programme requirements, researchers helped test it. 

In addition to a content filter - for violence, hatred, sex, self-harm and jailbreak - Andreas Møgelmose, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, Design and Media Technology tried to jailbreak the study programme selector along with a group of PhD students.

"The service handled it quite well, although we could see that it was quite tough for it, and fortunately we were not successful in getting it to give unwanted responses," says Bo Hvass Pedersen. 

Good basis for choosing a degree programme

The idea for the study programme selector stems from the 2024 project "AI in Administration" and a desire to further develop AAU's admission checker where potential students could get information on the admission requirements for the individual degree programmes. 

"We decided to design a service that hopefully could get more people to choose Aalborg University, but it had to be based on them feeling super well informed with a good basis for their choice of study programme. I think we’ve succeeded in this to a large extent," says Bo Hvass Pedersen.

This is confirmed by the test subjects.

"I will use this [chat], and then I will use these links to read more about it, but I also feel that this provides feedback as much as it is a practical shortcut," says Sara, STX test subject.

Further development of the AI tool

Development of the study programme selector continues, as users also ask about AAU's Master's programmes, job types, study start, PBL, etc. This will involve staff in Study Service, student counsellors and others responsible for the programmes in the academic environments, as the inquiries place high demands on the quality of the information.

"I would like to know what comes after the Bachelor's degree. It's not enough for me just to know what the Bachelor's degree is. I think I want to go the whole way. But that's also because I already have an idea of what I want to do," says Anna, HHX test subject

Bo Hvass Pedersen also hopes that in the long term it can be a good tool for student counsellors.

An AI beacon

The AI Study Selector is a concrete example of Aalborg University's ambition to become a leader in research on AI, the use of artificial intelligence in teaching and the use of AI in administration.

"AAU has a number of AI beacons, and the study programme selector is definitely one of them. The people behind the project have succeeded in developing an intelligent, unique search tool that we can be proud of at AAU, says Søren Lind Christiansen, University Director. 

The AI Study Selector launched on 1 May 2025. 

Watch the video presentation of the AI Study Selector

Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs.