Surabaya, 17 November 2025 – The Department of Computer Engineering at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) once again demonstrates its commitment to delivering technological innovations that directly benefit the academic community. In line with its motto, “When Creativity Meets Technology,” the department has successfully introduced a new digital solution through its Community Service Program.
As part of the program, the development team created SAKAI, an Artificial Intelligence (AI)–powered WhatsApp chatbot supported by Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology. SAKAI is designed to assist, accelerate, and simplify student administrative services. This innovation emerges as an answer to modern administrative challenges that demand speed, consistency, and 24/7 service availability without time constraints.
The development of SAKAI was motivated by longstanding issues faced by students—administrative services that depend on manual responses, limited office hours, and the high volume of repetitive daily inquiries. These conditions often resulted in queues, delayed responses, and inefficient administrative workflows.
Through the RAG approach, SAKAI can read, understand, and retrieve information from the department’s knowledge base to generate contextual, accurate, and easy-to-understand responses for students. WhatsApp was chosen as the main platform due to its widespread use among Indonesian students, making SAKAI highly accessible anytime and anywhere.
Arta Kusuma Hernanda, S.T., M.T., head of the development team, stated that the introduction of SAKAI marks a significant step toward AI-based administrative modernization. “The development of SAKAI is expected to improve the efficiency of administrative staff while providing students with more flexible access to information. With this system, students can obtain services independently at any time, without being restricted by office hours,” Arta explained.
In its current development stage, SAKAI is equipped with various key features, including automated responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), step-by-step procedure guides, important announcement notifications, and an escalation mechanism to human administrators for more complex cases. The system is designed to handle hundreds of inquiries per day, with response times of under five seconds, making it one of the most adaptive administrative service innovations in the university environment.
With the launch of SAKAI, the ITS Department of Computer Engineering moves closer to its vision of becoming an internationally reputable department that is innovative and creative in the field of computer engineering.
This innovation stands as concrete evidence that AI technology can deliver positive impacts on academic processes while supporting the achievement of SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure) as outlined in the department’s Community Service progress report.
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Surabaya, 17 November 2025 – The Department of Computer Engineering at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) once again demonstrates
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