TLDR: Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore has partnered with CloudMile to integrate generative AI into its Lyon Bot virtual assistant, significantly reducing administrative workload by over 14 days per month and enhancing student engagement, particularly for housing inquiries.
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore has taken a significant leap in digital transformation by collaborating with leading AI provider CloudMile to upgrade its Lyon Bot virtual assistant with generative artificial intelligence. This strategic partnership aims to streamline administrative tasks and improve the overall student experience, particularly concerning housing inquiries. The initiative, which has been widely reported in late June and early July 2025, has already yielded impressive results, saving the university approximately 14.5 days of administrative effort each month.
The enhanced Lyon Bot now integrates Google’s Gemini large language model (LLM), enabling it to deliver faster and more accurate responses to student queries. This upgrade addresses the limitations of the previous intent-based chatbot, which was launched in 2020 using Google Dialogflow Essentials to assist nearly 6,000 freshmen during enrollment. The older system struggled to keep pace with evolving student needs, requiring extensive manual data tagging and updates.
According to Alvin Ong, Chief Information Officer of NTU, “With the new AI-powered chatbot, we are currently saving around 14.5 days’ worth of work every month. This allows our staff to focus on tasks that require human insight and creativity.” The new system employs multi-layered processing, including query understanding, demand classification, and real-time information retrieval from centrally managed data sources, which has markedly improved conversational accuracy and response speed while significantly reducing error rates.
Mr. Ng Kee Haur, Deputy Director of Enterprise IT at NTU, highlighted the strategic shift: “We are transitioning from an intent-based Natural Language Processing chatbot to a GenAI chatbot for student housing inquiries to enhance flexibility, scalability, and user experience.” He also noted that NTU is maintaining a hybrid model, combining both generative AI and intent-based systems to leverage the benefits of each, ensuring efficiency and precision in handling both complex, unstructured queries and specific scenarios.
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CloudMile’s involvement extended beyond just integration, providing tailored consulting services and multi-cloud support to help NTU build a stable and scalable conversational AI framework. Jeremy Heng, Managing Director of Southeast Asia at CloudMile, emphasized the company’s commitment to innovation in education, stating that “The transformation of NTU’s Lyon Bot is a testament to our commitment to enhancing human-computer interaction through AI. CloudMile will continue supporting institutions and enterprises in leveraging AI for innovation excellence.” This collaboration sets a new benchmark for how AI can streamline university operations and enhance student engagement on a large scale.
