GA (Palanga): UM's AI-Powered Multilingual Student Support Agent for 24/7 Inquiry Assistance

Authors: John Carlo Petinglay
Journal: Journal of University of Mindanao's Best Practices | Vol. 1, No. 1, July 2026
DOI:
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Abstract

GA, short for Palanga (Bisaya for “dear/beloved”), is the University of Mindanao’s AI-powered student support agent, accessible at https://ga.umindanao.edu.ph. Developed by the Information and Communications Technology Center (ICTC), GA was built to solve a simple but costly problem including students and parents waiting one to two business days for answers, flooding campus offices with concerns that could be resolved remotely, while staff time was consumed by repetitive, high-volume inquiries.

GA operates 24/7 and responds automatically in English, Filipino (Tagalog), or Bisaya by detecting the language per message with no switching required. Its capabilities span the full student journey: it answers FAQs and university policies instantly; displays grades and account information securely via Google login; helps students plan their course schedules based on curriculum, remaining subjects, and preferred time slots; estimates fees broken down per exam period so families can prepare financially before committing; evaluates credits for shifters and transferees in seconds, cutting what once took days of registrar back-and-forth; and most significantly, completes fully autonomous student enrollment for all students without any staff confirmation or intervention. When a concern falls outside its scope, GA escalates to live staff with the full conversation context intact.

Beyond serving students, GA transforms how management understands the university. Its real-time analytics dashboard autonomously analyzes unanswered questions, groups related concerns, and generates a Pareto analysis without human intervention, replacing what was once a tedious, once-a-year manual review with continuous, actionable institutional intelligence.

Keywords

Student Support, Inquiry Assistance