Source : https://www.pustakalewi.com/uc-manfaatkan-kecerdasan-buatan-yucca-untuk-bantu-mahasiswa-baru/

UC Leverages Yucca Artificial Intelligence to Assist New Students

March 25, 2025

Surabaya – Ciputra University (UC) students leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) to innovate and create an interactive chatbot called Yucca. It provides a variety of information needed by new students. This chatbot is designed to help new students obtain important information about campus, including facilities, schedules, and even recommendations for boarding houses.

Dr Trianggoro Wiradinata, M.Eng.Sc, CDSS, Director of AI and Technology Transformation at UC, stated that the Yucca chatbot project was the result of an internal competition held by UC. “The competition aimed to create a virtual assistant in the form of the campus mascot, Yucca, that could provide information in both voice and text via the official UC website,” he explained.

The Yucca chatbot project, he continued, is the result of a collaboration between two study programs: Informatics and Visual Communication Design (VCD). Informatics students utilised AI technology in their lectures, while students in the Visual Communication Design program developed the appearance and animation of the Yucca character. “This innovation proves that cross-disciplinary collaboration can produce technology-based solutions that benefit the campus community,” Trianggoro continued.

Gerald Hartanto, representing the Visual Communication Design team, explained that creating the Yucca character began with determining its characteristics and traits. Development included creating a storyboard, rigging to provide movement for the character model, and adjusting the size and format to ensure compatibility with the system developed by the programming team. “The rigging and storyboarding process took about a month, while integration with the programming system took about a week,” explained Gerald.

Meanwhile, Willas Daniel Rorrong Lomban Tobing, a member of the Informatics team, explained that the chatbot was developed using an Application Programming Interface (API). “The AI ​​technology we used included GBT AI to generate intelligent responses and Eleven Labs AI to make the Yucca visuals produce sounds,” Willas explained.

Meanwhile, the data used in the chatbot was collected from UC’s internal website, including additional information about boarding houses around campus. “Our main challenge was adjusting the design to make it attractive and acceptable to both teams,” Willas concluded.

Going forward, added Dr Trianggoro Wiradinata, M.Eng.Sc, CDSS, Director of AI and Technology Transformation at UC, the Yucca chatbot is open to further development. “As AI develops and advances, the Yucca chatbot will continue to be developed to benefit not only students but also the general public,” Trianggoro concluded.