LearnWise AI Assistant Pilot Now Live Across LJMU

LJMU is currently piloting LearnWise, an AI-powered chatbot that sits directly inside Canvas to help students get quick answers to questions about their modules. The assistant can help with things like finding assessment deadlines, understanding course information, and accessing support.

The project aims to evaluate whether LearnWise can reduce the volume of routine, repetitive queries that academic staff receive, freeing up time for higher-value teaching and student support. It also seeks to understand whether the tool can genuinely enhance the student learning experience. The project launched formally in January 2026 and is being run over two years, with evaluation built in from the start.

Where are we now?
The pilot has reached a significant milestone: LearnWise is now live across more than 30 modules, reaching over 3,000 students this semester. Module leaders opted in to make the assistant available on their Canvas courses, and the rollout marks the transition from small-scale testing to meaningful real-world use.
Alongside this, a survey was recently sent to all module leaders running semester 2 modules. The survey aimed to capture staff expectations around the types of queries LearnWise might handle and the potential time savings it could bring. That survey has now closed, and responses will feed into the project's evaluation framework.

What's next?
The team will be analysing survey responses and monitoring how students are engaging with the assistant across live modules. Student feedback will also be gathered as the semester progresses, with a module evaluation question embedded to capture satisfaction and ease of access to information. The project continues to take a careful, evidence-based approach, sharing what we learn as we go.