As generative AI becomes a staple in students’ academic lives, The University of Texas at Austin is setting a new standard for responsible innovation with the launch of UT Sage, a generative AI-powered tutor platform developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
UT Sage was recently featured on the AWS Blog, “Personalized learning support at scale: How UT Austin built a generative AI tutor platform on AWS” — this blog post takes a deep dive into the technology and vision behind UT Sage, including how it was built in collaboration with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center.
A Faculty-Guided AI Experience
UT Sage is not just another chatbot. It’s a faculty-guided AI tutor platform that allows instructors to create customized virtual tutors aligned with their course content. These tutors engage students in Socratic-style dialogue, helping them build critical thinking skills and deepen their understanding of course material.
“Our goal was to create a platform that promoted evidence-based pedagogical practices that faculty could trust and that students could use to support their academic goals,” said Kasey Ford, AI designer and product owner for UT Sage.
Built on AWS, Designed for Trust
UT Sage was developed in partnership with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, leveraging AWS’s scalable infrastructure to ensure security, compliance, and performance. The platform aligns with UT Austin’s responsible AI adoption framework, ensuring that the technology supports—not replaces—the essential connection between faculty and students.
The collaboration also emphasized real-world usability, with UT Austin leading extensive user testing to shape the platform’s design.
“The user testing informed a lot of the features we added and made this a very robust application,” said Robby Milletich, senior applied scientist at AWS. “The UT Austin staff set the bar very high in terms of user testing.”
This focus on iterative design and feedback helped ensure that UT Sage would be both technically strong and pedagogically effective.
A Campus-Wide Rollout
After a successful beta phase, UT Sage has officially launched before Fall 2025 semester starts. It is now available to all faculty and staff for tutor creation, and to students for use in their courses. The platform is part of a broader suite of AI tools offered through the UT.AI initiative, which highlights UT Spark and Microsoft Copilot tools.
Meeting Students Where They Are
Today’s students are increasingly turning to generative AI tools to supplement their learning—whether for brainstorming, reviewing concepts, or exploring new ideas. UT Sage meets this demand by offering on-demand, course-specific support that complements classroom instruction and reinforces foundational knowledge.
“For the students, the tutor works a lot like the kind of chatbot everyone is familiar with, but the advantage is that it’s been trained by their instructor to align with what’s being taught in their courses,” Kasey Ford explained in the AWS blog.
A Model for Higher Ed
Serving over 52,000 students across 19 colleges and schools, UT Austin is one of the largest public universities in the U.S. With UT Sage, the University is demonstrating how institutions can embrace AI responsibly—enhancing learning while preserving academic integrity and faculty agency.