TU Delft Learning for Life Scales Learner Support with LearnWise AI

Overview: Empowering Lifelong Learners Through AI-Driven Assistance

TU Delft Learning for Life  supports a global community of lifelong learners through flexible, high-quality online programs. With over 200,000 annual enrollments and visitors from across the world, the organization faced a growing challenge: how to provide consistent, high-quality support to learners at scale, while managing limited team resources and budget constraints.

To address these challenges, TU Delft partnered with LearnWise AI to deploy an intelligent, multilingual support assistant designed to streamline student help, improve response times, and enhance the overall learner experience.

About TU Delft Learning for Life 

The TU Delft Learning for Life Centre (formerly Extension School) serves as the university’s hub for lifelong learning, catering to professionals, students, and organizations seeking high-quality online courses in science, technology, and engineering.

With an audience spanning multiple time zones, the corporate department handles a high volume of calls/requests for support  from both prospective and enrolled learners, covering topics from enrollment and pricing to course access and certification.

As an innovation hub for EdTech, TU Delft regularly pilots emerging technologies, scaling successful initiatives to the wider institution. The Learning for Life’s AI pilot represented a major step in its digital transformation journey, beginning with the area of highest traffic: its website, which receives over 300,000 visitors annually.

The Challenge: Supporting a Global, Always-On Student Base

With a small internal team and a worldwide audience, TU Delft faced three core challenges:

• High Volume of Repetitive Inquiries
  Questions about course access, enrollment, and payment options were flooding inboxes, requiring significant manual effort.
  
  
• Limited Staffing and Budget Constraints
  The institution needed a solution that could scale up learner support without upscaling headcount.
  
  
• Maintaining a High-Quality Learner Experience
  The goal was not just automation for efficiency’s sake, but delivering responsive, accurate, and human-centered support around the clock.

As Willem van Valkenburg, Executive Director Learning for Life, summarized: “The goal wasn’t to just cut tickets, but to maintain a high-quality learner experience at scale.”

The Solution: From Pilot to Scalable Support

TU Delft launched its LearnWise AI assistant named “LiLLian” (a reference to lifelong learning -LLL) in early 2025 as part of the Learning for Life website’s digital transformation. The deployment included:

• Custom integration with FAQtory, the institution’s ticketing and support system.
• 24/7 multilingual assistance, offering personalized guidance for global learners.
• Institution-approved knowledge sources, ensuring accuracy and trustworthiness of all responses.

This “standards-first” integration kept IT overhead low and accelerated the organisation’s ability to scale. Within months, the LearnWise AI assistant was seamlessly embedded across TU Delft’s digital ecosystem, serving as the first line of support for thousands of learners worldwide.

Results: A Data-Driven Transformation

Between March and September 2025, TU Delft observed measurable improvements in support quality and efficiency:

• 97.9% Resolution Rate: nearly all inquiries were resolved directly through the assistant.
• Over 1,300 AI-Generated Responses and 900+ unique users engaged with the assistant.
• Only 22 queries required escalation to a human agent, freeing significant staff capacity for complex issues.

These results confirmed that LearnWise AI could both enhance operational efficiency and preserve high-quality learner experiences at scale.

Key Outcomes

1. Enhanced User Experience

Learners gained immediate access to relevant information on enrollment, payment, and course logistics; no more long response times or office-hour constraints.

2. Operational Efficiency

By automating routine questions, the organisation’s team redirected time toward higher-impact, human-centered support tasks.

3. Scalable, Always-Available Service

LearnWise AI handled increasing demand without compromising accuracy or tone, demonstrating true scalability for global audiences.

4. Data-Driven Insights

Interaction analytics identified gaps in existing knowledge bases, guiding continuous updates and improving institutional knowledge management.

Governance, Trust, and Continuous Improvement

Trust and academic integrity were critical to adoption. TU Delft implemented a strict governance framework for AI usage:

• Scoped Knowledge Sources all AI responses are based on verified, institution-approved content to reduce hallucinations.
• Content Review Cycles analytics highlight where the AI assistant needs better data, prompting timely updates.
• Reliable Partner Collaboration LearnWise’s rapid response and on-time delivery were key in securing internal buy-in.

These practices ensured the AI assistant’s knowledge base remained both current and trustworthy, reinforcing confidence across departments.

Next Steps: Extending AI Across the Learning Ecosystem

Following the success of the initial deployment, TU Delft plans to extend LearnWise AI’s reach across its learning and administrative ecosystem:

• Instructor and Staff Assistants – expanding from student-facing to faculty-facing use cases.
• LMS Integration (OpenEdX) – embedding personalized support directly in learning environments.
• Brightspace and SharePoint Expansion – connecting multiple institutional systems for unified access.

The long-term vision: a holistic AI ecosystem supporting learners throughout their entire learning lifecycle: from inquiry to enrollment, coursework, and alumni engagement.

The goal is to accompany them wherever they are on their journey: on the website, inside the LMS, or within staff systems, providing consistent, context-aware support across every stage.

Lessons Learned

Through this pilot, TU Delft identified several critical success factors for implementing AI at scale:

1. Start Where It Matters Most
   Launching on the website (the highest-volume surface) demonstrated immediate impact and accelerated stakeholder buy-in.
2. Prioritize Reliability and Delivery
   Consistent, on-time performance from LearnWise reinforced confidence across teams and leadership.
3. Build on Standards, Not Complexity
   Using established integration frameworks minimized technical overhead and made scaling frictionless.
4. Let Data Lead Improvement
   Analytics-driven content updates keep the system relevant and ensure learners continue to receive accurate, up-to-date information.

Looking Ahead

The partnership between TU Delft Learning for Life and LearnWise AI represents a powerful model for how universities can responsibly adopt AI: combining innovation, accessibility, and institutional trust.

As TU Delft continues to evolve its digital strategy, LearnWise AI remains a core enabler in its mission to deliver high-quality, scalable, and human-centered support to learners worldwide.

By reducing staff workload, improving response speed, and deepening personalization, TU Delft is setting a benchmark for ethical, student-centric AI adoption in higher education.

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