Start-up project at Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences in Jena advances research on chatbots and artificial intelligence.

Ernst Abbe University of Applied Sciences in Jena is expanding its activities in the field of artificial intelligence: The start-up project “OptoPrime” will continue existing software development and, thanks to follow-up funding, will be further developed in a targeted manner.

The focus is on the tutor chatbot KIWi, developed by the Schie working group and based on a large language model (LLM). This supports students by providing personalized learning content from lectures in the medical technology and biotechnology degree program and by answering questions precisely.

OptoPrime will now be used to research new methods, in particular the use of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and vector databases. The aim is to optimize chatbots so that they can be used even more specifically in teaching, research, and medicine:

• In teaching, KIWi will in future provide precise information directly from lecture materials and specialist texts.
• In research, the RAG architecture will be further developed to create interactive tools for handling research data.
• In medicine, the potential use of chatbots as a support tool is being investigated, e.g., in the structured collection of patient data for medical histories.

With this project, EAH Jena is laying the foundation for significantly increasing the efficiency and accuracy of AI-based assistance systems—and thus providing new impetus for teaching, science, and medical technology.