AI Conversation Overview

AI Conversation is specifically designed as an interactive activity in which students actively participate. Instructors can create an AI Conversation in their course, outlining a topic and an AI persona, and select the type of conversation for the students to engage in. Within the AI Conversation functionality, instructors can choose between two options: Socratic Questioning, in which the AI persona encourages students to think critically through continuous questioning, or Role Play, which allows students to play out a scenario with the AI persona. 

To learn more about conversation types and how to set up, see AI Conversations: Conversation Types & Set Up.

How Does the AI System Work?

AI Conversation leverages Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to auto-generate outputs. This is achieved by using information provided by the instructor within the Socratic or Role Play option such as topic, AI persona, personality traits, and complexity, along with our prompt to facilitate the responses.  For an explanation of how the Azure OpenAI Service and the underlying OpenAI GPT large language models work in detail, refer to the Introduction section of Microsoft’s Transparency Note and the links provided within it.

The AI Conversation functionalities are subject to the limitations and availability of the Azure OpenAI Service and are subject to change. 

Where is the AI System Hosted?

Anthology currently uses multiple global Azure OpenAI Service instances. The primary instance is hosted in the United States, but at times we may utilize resources in other locations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, or France to provide the best availability option for the Azure OpenAI Service for our clients. 

All client course data and instructor input used for the input and all output generated by AI Conversation is stored in the client’s existing Blackboard database by Anthology.

How is the AI System Trained?

Anthology is not involved in the training of the large language models that power the AI Conversation functionalities. These models are trained by OpenAI / Microsoft as part of the Azure OpenAI Service that power the AI Conversation functionalities. Microsoft provides information about how the large language models are trained in the Introduction section of Microsoft’s Transparency Note and the links provided within it. 

Anthology does not further fine-tune the Azure OpenAI Service using our own or our clients’ data.

What Happens With Personal Information Collected by the System?

Client data is not used for (re)training the AI System. Microsoft contractually commits in its Azure OpenAI terms with Anthology to not use any input into, or output of, the Azure OpenAI for the (re)training of the large language model. The same commitment is made in the Microsoft documentation on Data, privacy, and security for Azure OpenAI Service. Anthology only uses the information collected in connection with AI Conversation to provide, maintain, and support AI Conversation and where we have the contractual permission to do so in accordance with applicable law. You can find more information about Anthology’s approach to data privacy in our Trust Center.

Only limited course information is provided to Microsoft for the Azure OpenAI Service. This should generally not include personal information (except in cases where personal information is included in the topic, AI Persona, or Personality fields, or the student’s questions and responses to the AI bot). Additionally, any information the instructors choose to include in the prompt will be accessible. 

Microsoft does not use any Anthology data nor Anthology client data it has access to (as part of the Azure OpenAI Service) to improve the OpenAI models, to improve its own or third-party products services, or to automatically improve the Azure OpenAI models for Anthology’s use in Anthology’s resource. The models are stateless. Microsoft reviews prompts and output for its content filtering. Prompts and output are only stored for up to 30 days. 

You can find more information about the data privacy practices regarding the Azure OpenAI Service in the Microsoft documentation on Data, privacy, and security for Azure OpenAI Service.

To learn more see AI Conversation Transparency Notes.