What Syntea does

Syntea supports students during the self-learning phase, helping them build understanding and stay on track between teaching touchpoints. IU positions Syntea as a study companion that complements teaching staff. A key differentiator is that Syntea provides an all-in-one platform combining course content with personalised AI support aligned to student syllabus materials at each stage of the learning journey, rather than relying on generic, disconnected tools. Syntea is intended to help students proactively make visible progress, develop sustainable learning habits and access support within one university-connected experience.

How Syntea works in practice

Syntea has evolved from reactive Q&A into a fully-fledged learning companion, guiding students throughout their learning journey and taking a student-first approach. It begins with personalised onboarding to understand a student’s context, preferences and goals, and then proactively guides learners through their course, adapting over time. Syntea combines a multi-modal conversational interface with structured learning flows and companion features such as reminders, progress tracking and an exam readiness indicator to help students gauge when they are ready to sit an exam with confidence.

Alongside the student experience, IU has developed a Faculty Dashboard, co-created with a professor working group, providing instructors with deep visibility into cohort engagement patterns, recurring knowledge gaps and indicators of exam readiness for the first time. This helps teaching teams identify where students may need additional support and target interventions more effectively.

Evidence of impact

IU monitors engagement and gathers student feedback to understand how Syntea is used in practice and how it supports the learning experience.

Usage data demonstrates strong voluntary engagement with Syntea, with an estimated 48,000 monthly active users and approximately 3.1 million user messages per month.

Responsible AI and risk monitoring

IU has implemented a multi-layered approach to responsible AI and risk management for Syntea. Responses are grounded in IU course materials rather than the open web, to improve relevance and help reduce inaccurate outputs, supported by human quality assurance. IU has also implemented controls relating to bias and safety, cybersecurity testing, including prompt injection and jailbreak attacks, and GDPR-aligned privacy measures such as anonymisation and granular consent controls. Syntea includes accessibility features such as light/dark mode, partial avatar speech, voice input, and availability in German and English, and is designed to support academic integrity by guiding learning rather than completing graded work.

External recognition

Syntea has received several national and international Ed-Tech innovation awards, including Gold in the category ‘AI in Education by Higher Education Institutions’ at the QS Reimagine Education Awards & Conference in London, as well as the Award for Excellence in Education at the Education 2.0 Conference in Las Vegas, reflecting IU’s role in advancing AI-enabled learning support in higher education.