OFFICE OF THE VICE CHANCELLOR - CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

August 8, 2025

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ALL ACADEMICS AND STAFF AT UC SAN DIEGO

UC San Diego AI Services: Summer 2025 Campus Update

Dear Colleagues,

In a time of increasing budget pressures, tools that simplify information access and optimize operations are essential. UC San Diego’s AI services are built to meet this need, empowering campus units to work more efficiently, make faster decisions, and maintain the highest standards of data security and privacy.

This message highlights recent developments in AI services and initiatives that are gaining momentum across the university. These efforts underscore our commitment to deploying secure, innovative technologies that enhance operational effectiveness, support teaching and learning, and elevate the digital experience for the entire campus community.

TritonGPT Platform Highlights

TritonGPT continues to evolve as UC San Diego’s secure, generative AI platform, with ongoing enhancements to usability, performance, and accessibility. Its accuracy and effectiveness have steadily improved, informed by valuable feedback from campus users. To support adoption, a growing library of training materials, documentation, and how-to guides is available on Blink to help users maximize the platform’s value.

  • A new AI chatbot widget featuring the UC San Diego Assistant is now embedded in Blink and other key websites, enabling natural language Q&A powered by UC San Diego-specific knowledge. Campus units are now adopting this solution to replace commercial chatbot services.  Additional information is available on Blink. 
  • Student access to TritonGPT has also been enabled, expanding the reach of institutional AI support and laying the groundwork for future student-centered assistants. Find out more on TritonLink. 
  • TritonGPT now supports multiple AI models, including the default on-premises Llama 4 Scout and commercial models such as GPT-4.1 and GPT-4o via Microsoft Azure, all deployed in secure, policy-compliant environments. More models will be available soon. 
  • A new "My Documents" feature allows users to upload and organize content from multiple sources — such as PDFs, Word files, and HTML pages — to generate cohesive responses using context from those files.

These updates ensure TritonGPT remains a high-performing, secure, and flexible AI solution tailored to the unique needs of our campus. More details are in the Release Notes. 

Beyond enhancements to TritonGPT, we’ve developed Contract Reviewer, a generative AI tool that automates contract analysis by applying UC San Diego’s policy rulesets to flag risks and recommend revisions. It streamlines legal review by generating structured markups and producing annotated redlined documents. Initial deployments have commenced.

Instructional AI Pilot – Launching Fall 2025

This pilot program provides selected instructors with course-specific AI assistants powered by TritonGPT. These assistants:

  • Use instructor-uploaded materials to generate content, summaries, and ideas.
  • Support students in engaging with course content through the Student AI Assistant’s Socratic dialogue. 
  • Operate through a secure Google Drive integration, with Canvas linkage and student usage insights provided to the instructor.

The pilot runs through fall quarter 2025, with findings guiding a broader deployment that enables faculty to opt into integrating these assistants into their courses.

AI Services from Supported Vendors

These vendors have contracts with agreed terms. We invite you to explore these services and consider how AI can support your work. 

Zoom AI Companion: Offers live transcription, meeting summaries, and AI-powered Q&A, all of which can be enabled through the Zoom web portal.

Google Gemini & NotebookLM:

  • Gemini: A multimodal AI assistant that supports text, voice, image, and code inputs, enabling users to draft content, generate images, brainstorm ideas, summarize documents or emails, translate languages, and execute programming tasks.
  • NotebookLM: A document-centric tool that allows users to upload, summarize, and interact with PDFs, webpages, and videos. 

These services are available to all campus employees and Health Sciences employees who have been approved for access to Google Workspace. 

Microsoft Copilot:

  • Copilot With Data Protection: Available to all campus users for quick chat-based queries, image generation, and PDF summarization.
  • Copilot For Microsoft 365: Works alongside apps like Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams. Currently available via recharge.

As more supported vendors integrate AI services into their platforms, we will review them to ensure their contractual terms and conditions align with our standards. Requests to support additional AI use cases, tools and services can be made via the AI Development Work Group. Thank you for supporting innovation at UC San Diego. 

Sincerely,

Allorah Pradenas
Associate Vice Chancellor/Chief of Staff to Vice Chancellor-Chief Financial Officer

Brett Pollak
Executive Director, Workplace Technology & Infrastructure Services
Information Technology Services

Dan Suchy
Senior Director, Academic Technology Services
Information Technology Services

University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093