How to evaluate AI platforms for schools and universities
Every vendor says its AI is safe and accurate. These twelve questions help you compare platforms on facts, in four areas.
Short answer
To find the best AI platform for a school or university, compare four things: where your data lives, how answers are checked, how it fits your systems, and what control you keep. Ask every vendor the same written questions and compare the answers side by side.
1. Data: where does it live?
Start here. If the answers are unclear, the rest does not matter.
- Does the platform run in the vendor cloud, in our cloud account, or on our own servers?
- Is any of our data used to train or improve models?
- Which other companies receive our data, and in which countries?
Accuracy: who checks the answers?
A demo always shows good answers. Ask what happens with the bad ones.
- Is the model general, or trained for education?
- Is each answer checked against trusted sources before it is shown?
- What happens when the AI is not sure? Does a person review it?
3. Fit: does it work with what we have?
A tool that staff must open in a separate place is used less.
- Does it connect to our learning management system?
- Can our IT team deploy and update it with the skills they have?
- Is the interface simple enough for a teacher on the first day?
4. Control and cost: what happens later?
Think about year three, not only the first term.
- How is the price set: per user, per use, or per deployment?
- Can we export or delete all our data if we leave?
- What support and response times are in the contract?
Public cloud tools and on-premise platforms
Large public AI tools with education plans are quick to start and familiar to staff. Their limit is that the service runs in the vendor cloud, on a general model, under terms the vendor can change.
On-premise platforms take more effort to install. In return the institution controls where the data is and how the system is run. Neither is right for everyone. The twelve questions above show which one fits your rules and your risk.
Where bentoboxs AI fits
Bentoboxs AI is an on-premise option made only for education. It runs on your infrastructure, uses a model trained for education, and checks each answer with AirGAPio before it is shown. Ask us the same twelve questions in a demo.
Request a demoFrequently Asked Questions
Short answers to the questions education leaders ask most.
It depends on your rules for student data. If data may sit in a vendor cloud, an education plan of a public tool can work. If data must stay inside the school, look at on-premise platforms. Use the same checklist for each.
Ask where the data is processed and stored, and whether it is used to train models. These two answers decide if the platform can pass your data protection review.
Yes. On-premise AI platforms run inside the institution instead of the vendor cloud. Bentoboxs AI is one, built for education with answer validation.
Plan for a few weeks: a demo, written answers to your questions, a review by IT and data protection, and a small pilot with a few teachers before a wider rollout.
Keep reading
More plain guides for leaders of schools and universities.