BANGKOK – 29 April 2025 – Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, today announced that Chiang Mai University (CMU), a leading public research institution in Thailand, has built ChatGen and Matthew, industry-first generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) platforms on the world’s leading cloud. Matthew provides generative AI capabilities to more than 52,000 university staff and students, allowing users to answer questions with document references, summarize content, analyze data and images, create documents, and translate text. This initiative represents a major milestone in CMU's mission to transform into an “AI University,” providing advanced AI tools to enhance education, research, and operations across the institution.  
This democratization of AI access comes at a critical time as 86% of students are using AI in their studies, with 54% of students using AI on a weekly basis. CMU recognized the need for an ethical, university-approved approach to guide and support students with adopting AI technology, ensuring equitable access through free AI and generative AI tools for all.

Harnessing AWS AI Services for Educational Excellence

To build a generative AI assistant that helps university staff and students adopt the technology in an ethical way, CMU needed an agile, scalable platform incorporating the latest large language models (LLMs), technology, and services. The university also deployed AWS-powered RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology that integrates multiple AI models to provide contextually relevant responses based on university documents and data.

ChatGen incorporates Amazon Nova for AI chat functionalities and AI recommendations like class enrolment recommendations while accessing multiple foundation models through Amazon Bedrock, including Claude, Llama, and Mistral. The platform connects seamlessly with other university systems, including production databases, via a multi-connectivity platform (MCP) and remains accessible through standard CMU IT accounts, working across all devices through web browsers to ensure universal access.

For example, CMU created the Student Compass AI assistant with ChatGen to help students align academic plans with career goals. The AI assistant guides course selection, scheduling, and degree tracking while integrating career planning through skills mapping, industry research, and opportunity discovery. Students can build personalized roadmaps with milestones, internships, networking strategies, and skill development. Student Compass supports time management and progress tracking while balancing short-term academic needs with long-term career vision, empowering students to make informed decisions and prepare for success. CMU also uses ChatGen for meeting summaries, staff evaluations, and automated policy responses—powered by AWS for secure, scalable AI integration.

ChatGen is part of CMU's broader AI ecosystem, working alongside Matthew, a complementary tool focused on educational learning outcomes. Also built on AWS, Matthew enables professors to create course-specific AI assistants for students. To date, users have created more than 1,000 AI assistants to help students with preparing course materials, developing intelligent tutors, and gaining AI literacy skills like prompt engineering.

Ensuring Ethical AI Use

CMU has established clear guidelines for generative AI use and employs anti-plagiarism software to check final coursework, ensuring technology adoption aligns with the university's ethical framework. AWS services support this ethical approach through the implementation of Amazon Bedrock Guardrails that ensure safe AI use, while Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides robust storage for the university's extensive knowledge base.

“Becoming an AI University isn’t just about using new tech—it’s about rethinking how we teach, research, and work,” said Assistant Professor Dr Chaiy Rungsiyakull, Director of Smart Campus Management Center, Chiang Mai University. “With AWS’s generative AI services like Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Nova, we can easily build tools like ChatGen and Matthew to make AI accessible to all students while upholding our academic and ethical values.”

“Matthew has changed the way I teach prompt writing,” said Assistant Professor Thanatip Chankong, Faculty of Engineering, Chiang Mai University. “I can now use it to create an AI assistant named Kathi that guides students from all faculties to write prompts for situations in their fields. Kathi evaluates results and provides encouraging feedback for improvement. My students love how it helps them in a step-by-step way, building their confidence in using AI as a practical tool.”

“AI is rapidly transforming education, and universities that embrace it thoughtfully will shape the future of learning,” said Eric Conrad, Regional Managing Director, ASEAN, Public Sector, AWS. “Chiang Mai University is leading the way by using AWS’s powerful AI services to make generative AI accessible to students and faculty. With Amazon Bedrock and ChatGen, they’re not only democratizing AI but also ensuring responsible use—setting a strong example for institutions worldwide.”

About Amazon Web Services

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