Kolkata: Veena, the new chatbot on the centralised admission portal for undergraduate admissions had interacted with more than 7,236 users and answered 19,844 questions over four days till Saturday evening, showed higher education department data.

From helping applicants with selecting colleges and courses to answering queries on the admission process, document verification and payments, Veena, with multilingual support system, seemed to have made it easier for applicants to fill up forms.TOI reported on May 15 on the chatbot's debut on the centralised portal, launched to guide candidates through the process and clear their doubts in real-time, which in turn would ensure fewer errors in the forms.

"As the chatbot utilises Domain-Specific Natural Language Processing techniques to understand and process queries in natural language, students can interact in a conversation-like manner in multiple languages, including Bengali, Hindi and English.

Some applicants asked questions in Bengali though they wrote it in English font. The chatbot gave the answer in Bengali font," said an official. "The chatbot maintained 35%-38% Bengali support on all days."

Another official pointed out that 2.8 interactions with the chatbot per user took place on an average, indicating "strong engagement". "User growth increased in the first few days, and the applicants rated their experience on the chatbot highly, marking a score between 4.5 and 5, 5 being the maximum," said the official.The chatbot was introduced after many of last year's applicants had said they found it difficult to understand the course combinations and many even made some basic mistakes.

"But the chatbot helped clear doubts and minimise errors. The queries are changing from quantitative questions, like the number of seats, eligibility criteria and documents required, to qualitative ones, like comparisons between courses and colleges or and best-suited subject combinations.

The chatbot is answering the queries precisely and instantly," said an official.The higher education department said the first few days' chatbot interactions showed remarkable AI system evolution as the precision of answers improved, reaching almost 99% accuracy. The interaction data and feedback showed that the AI-driven tool had the capacity for self-learning, improving answers and enhancing the admission process, said an official. "As the chatbot handles a large number of users at the same time, the call waiting-time has minimised.

It is ensuring reliability while complying with privacy and security," he said.