Artificial Intelligence (AI) is having a profound impact on every aspect of our lives, and education is no exception. But leveraging AI to produce better learning outcomes requires intelligent strategies directed by experienced educational professionals. This is what the Open Institute of Technology (OPIT) is working to achieve with its new OPIT AI Copilot.

OPIT is a pioneering global online university that delivers accessible and flexible courses designed to prepare people for future careers in which technology is constantly improving and evolving. And OPIT AI Copilot is now part of this, helping students manage their course load and personalize their learning, while teaching AI applications in practice.

OPIT’s Vision

OPIT was founded to fill a gap in the education market, as traditional university courses struggle to keep pace with fast-changing technology. It builds its curriculum around current cutting-edge technology and staffs its faculty with experts who are not just teachers but also active, leading professionals in the field of artificial intelligence. This is in addition to courses that combine theory with practical application.

OPIT also believes that education should be accessible for all. Their flexible online approach means that busy professionals can study while continuing their careers, and everyone can access quality education no matter where they are in the world. OPIT serves more than 350 students from 80 countries, including emerging nations like Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya.

OPIT AI Copilot is part of this vision. The groundbreaking AI agent acts as a personal tutor, available 24/7, bridging time zones and providing real-time support. The agent also can personalize how it delivers content, adapting it based on the needs of the student, including their preferred learning style, pre-existing knowledge, learning pace, preferred language, and more. This is a major step toward overcoming the issue of the prevalent “one-size-fits-all” approach to education, which may be practical for teaching large groups but is an ineffective approach to learning.

Training and Development

The effectiveness of education AI agents depends on the quality and breadth of their training material. OPIT AI Copilot stands out for being trained on OPIT’s entire education archive. This includes 3,500 hours of video content from 131 courses, plus 3,000 proprietary documents, including 320 certified assessments.

Developed by an in-house team of dedicated faculty, engineers, and researchers, the OPIT AI Copilot is one of the first deeply integrated AI systems of its kind in a European institution. In-house development ensures that the AI agent is aligned with OPIT’s educational philosophy and approaches.

Capabilities and Features

OPIT AI Copilot is designed to be a dynamic and multi-faceted assistant with a wide range of functionality. Principal among them are:

• Personalized Learning Support: OPIT AI Copilot provides real-time, personalized guidance that adapts to a student’s progress. It can link directly to relevant sources within the virtual learning environment and adjust its support based on where the student is in their course modules. It avoids revealing information from unreleased modules, ensuring a structured and integrated learning experience.
• Contextual Assistance: As well as drawing from existing material, OPIT AI Copilot can generate content to deepen the learning experience, such as code samples and practice exams. It can also answer questions posed by the student, with responses grounded in the official course materials.
• Academic Integrity during Exams: During examinations, OPIT AI Copilot automatically shifts into “anti-cheating mode,” during which it restricts direct answers on exam topics and functions solely as a basic research tool, promoting self-driven learning and ensuring academic integrity.
• 24/7 Availability: The AI assistant operates and interacts continuously, providing round-the-clock support, which is invaluable for students across different time zones.

Benefits for Students: Enhanced Learning and Support

Having access to OPIT’s AI Copilot as a dedicated learning assistant has various benefits for students engaged in one of OPIT’s courses:

• Personalized Learning Journey: Students receive tailored support that adapts to their individual pace and learning style.
• Instant Access to Information: Immediate feedback promotes faster learning and boosts motivation, leading students to achieve better learning results.
• Improved Study Habits: Features like exam simulations and the ability to download summaries and concept maps empower students to study more effectively.
• Flexibility for Working Professionals: 24/7 availability and adaptive learning modes are particularly beneficial for students juggling study around other commitments such as work and family.

Benefits for Teachers and Faculty

While we often focus on the benefit for students, OPIT AI Copilot also benefits teachers and faculty to do their jobs better.

• Automated Grading: Automated grading of multiple-choice and single-answer exams lets students get their results immediately. The agent can also provide preliminary grades on longer written exams, assessing structure and grammar, and checking for the inclusion of key concepts. This again gives students immediate feedback while waiting for final marks and gives teachers an unbiased guide to help them verify that they are grading fairly.
• Generation of Learning Materials: Teachers can leverage OPIT AI Copilot to generate new learning materials, quizzes, and feedback rubrics, based on the core materials that they have prepared and gathered. They can also use the tool to find related new publications and materials for review and possible inclusion in the course. This saves teachers time as they expand and refine their curriculum materials.
• Scalability: The AI system allows OPIT to scale its educational offerings and support services more effectively, accommodating a growing international student body without a proportional increase in human resources.
• Pioneering Educational Technology: By integrating such an advanced AI system, OPIT positions itself as a leader in educational technology, attracting students and faculty who are keen on innovation and future-proof learning models.

OPIT AI Copilot currently saves teachers up to 30% of their time, allowing them and other faculty to focus on activities such as personalized instruction, one-on-one mentorship, refining teaching methodologies, fostering deeper student engagement, and exploring innovative pedagogical approaches.

The Future of Education With OPIT AI Copilot

The launch of OPIT AI Copilot, unveiled at Microsoft’s “AI Agents and the Future of Higher Education” event in Milan, marked a significant milestone in online education. As Professor Francesco Profumo, Rector of OPIT and former Italian Minister of Education, aptly put it, “AI is no longer just a tool: it’s an environment, a context that radically changes how we learn, teach, and create.” He emphasized that while AI offers immense potential, it also presents a cultural, ethical, and pedagogical challenge that requires courage to rethink traditional models and build solid bridges between human and artificial intelligence.

Riccardo Ocleppo, founder and director of OPIT, reinforced this vision: “We want to put technology at the service of higher education. We’re ready to develop solutions not only for our students, but also to share with other global institutions that are eager to innovate the learning experience, to face a future in education that’s fast approaching.”

Source:

• Peace FM Online, published on June 27th, 2025

• Peace FM Online

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• Business & Financial Times, published on June 30th, 2025

• Business & Financial Times

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• The Educator, published on June 19th, 2025

• The Educator

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• Il Sole 24 Ore, published on June 23rd, 2025

At its core is a teaching heritage made up of 131 courses, 3,500 hours of video, 1,800 live sessions

• Il Sole 24 Ore

Source:

• Agenda Digitale, published on June 16th, 2025

By Lokesh Vij, Professor of Cloud Computing Infrastructure, Cloud Development, Cloud Computing Automation and Ops and Cloud Data Stacks at OPIT – Open Institute of Technology

NIST identifies five key characteristics of cloud computing: on-demand self-service, network access, resource pooling, elasticity, and metered service. These pillars explain the success of the global cloud market of 912 billion in 2025

• Agenda Digitale

You’ve probably seen two of the most recent popular social media trends. The first is creating and posting your personalized action figure version of yourself, complete with personalized accessories, from a yoga mat to your favorite musical instrument. There is also the Studio Ghibli trend, which creates an image of you in the style of a character from one of the animation studio’s popular films.

Both of these are possible thanks to OpenAI’s GPT-4o-powered image generator. But what are you risking when you upload a picture to generate this kind of content? More than you might imagine, according to Tom Vazdar, chair of cybersecurity at the Open Institute of Technology (OPIT), in a recent interview with Wired. Let’s take a closer look at the risks and how this issue ties into the issue of responsible artificial intelligence.

Uploading Your Image

To get a personalized image of yourself back from ChatGPT, you need to upload an actual photo, or potentially multiple images, and tell ChatGPT what you want. But in addition to using your image to generate content for you, OpenAI could also be using your willingly submitted image to help train its AI model. Vazdar, who is also CEO and AI & Cybersecurity Strategist at Riskoria and a board member for the Croatian AI Association, says that this kind of content is “a gold mine for training generative models,” but you have limited power over how that image is integrated into their training strategy.

Plus, you are uploading much more than just an image of yourself. Vazdar reminds us that we are handing over “an entire bundle of metadata.” This includes the EXIF data attached to the image, such as exactly when and where the photo was taken. And your photo may have more content in it than you imagine, with the background – including people, landmarks, and objects – also able to be tied to that time and place.

In addition to this, OpenAI also collects data about the device that you are using to engage with the platform, and, according to Vazdar, “There’s also behavioral data, such as what you typed, what kind of image you asked for, how you interacted with the interface and the frequency of those actions.”

After all that, OpenAI knows a lot about you, and soon, so could their AI model, because it is studying you.

How OpenAI Uses Your Data

OpenAI claims that they did not orchestrate these social media trends simply to get training data for their AI, and that’s almost certainly true. But they also aren’t denying that access to that freely uploaded data is a bonus. As Vazdar points out, “This trend, whether by design or a convenient opportunity, is providing the company with massive volumes of fresh, high-quality facial data from diverse age groups, ethnicities, and geographies.”

OpenAI isn’t the only company using your data to train its AI. Meta recently updated its privacy policy to allow the company to use your personal information on Meta-related services, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to train its AI. While it is possible to opt-out, Meta isn’t advertising that fact or making it easy, which means that most users are sharing their data by default.

You can also control what happens with your data when using ChatGPT. Again, while not well publicized, you can use ChatGPT’s self-service tools to access, export, and delete your personal information, and opt out of having your content used to improve OpenAI’s model. Nevertheless, even if you choose these options, it is still worth it to strip data like location and time from images before uploading them and to consider the privacy of any images, including people and objects in the background, before sharing.

Are Data Protection Laws Keeping Up?

OpenAI and Meta need to provide these kinds of opt-outs due to data protection laws, such as GDPR in the EU and the UK. GDPR gives you the right to access or delete your data, and the use of biometric data requires your explicit consent. However, your photo only becomes biometric data when it is processed using a specific technical measure that allows for the unique identification of an individual.

But just because ChatGPT is not using this technology, doesn’t mean that ChatGPT can’t learn a lot about you from your images.

AI and Ethics Concerns

But you might wonder, “Isn’t it a good thing that AI is being trained using a diverse range of photos?” After all, there have been widespread reports in the past of AI struggling to recognize black faces because they have been trained mostly on white faces. Similarly, there have been reports of bias within AI due to the information it receives. Doesn’t sharing from a wide range of users help combat that? Yes, but there is so much more that could be done with that data without your knowledge or consent.

One of the biggest risks is that the data can be manipulated for marketing purposes, not just to get you to buy products, but also potentially to manipulate behavior. Take, for instance, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw AI used to manipulate voters and the proliferation of deepfakes sharing false news.

Vazdar believes that AI should be used to promote human freedom and autonomy, not threaten it. It should be something that benefits humanity in the broadest possible sense, and not just those with the power to develop and profit from AI.

Responsible Artificial Intelligence

OPIT’s Master’s in Responsible AI combines technical expertise with a focus on the ethical implications of AI, diving into questions such as this one. Focusing on real-world applications, the course considers sustainable AI, environmental impact, ethical considerations, and social responsibility.

Completed over three or four 13-week terms, it starts with a foundation in technical artificial intelligence and then moves on to advanced AI applications. Students finish with a Capstone project, which sees them apply what they have learned to real-world problems.

In May 2025, Riccardo Ocleppo, founder of the Open Institute of Technology (OPIT), gave the audience at TEDx Parma in Italy an insight into why he created OPIT, a new type of university that is quickly becoming essential in preparing students for an increasingly technological future.

Meet Riccardo

Although Riccardo graduated from Politecnico di Torino with a bachelor’s in electronic engineering in 2006 – followed by a master’s degree in 2008 – he felt unprepared for the challenges he felt he had to face as a professional. He sought to expand his vision by completing the master’s program at the London School of Business.

While studying in London, Riccardo became focused on how he could help other students optimize their studies and ensure they were properly prepared for their futures. This resulted in the creation of Docsity, an international online community where university students could exchange study materials to prepare for exams.

Docsity has grown into a global community with 15 million registered students. Moreover, it partners with over 250 universities and business schools worldwide that interview students and provide that information to educational organizations to help them refine their offerings. This experience of working as a conduit between students and universities shaped Riccardo’s understanding of the higher education sector’s needs, eventually leading to the creation of OPIT.

The Challenges Facing Higher Education

In his TEDx talk, Riccardo asked the Parma audience to imagine themselves on their first day of university – sitting in their classroom as their professor explains the concepts that they will learn over the coming years, designed to prepare them for the future.

But, he asked, how long will the skills in your curriculum be relevant? In the past, the skills learned at university would last someone for the rest of their professional lives. But today, with technology changing faster than ever, we have reached the point where we can’t accurately predict what technologies we will be using in five years. It is even more challenging, he said, to predict what kind of knowledge children sitting in classrooms today will need when they reach adulthood.

The inability to predict the skills that students will need in the future or adapt courses quickly enough to include those skills is why many university degrees are no longer fit for purpose, Riccardo explained. Instead, he stated, they are preparing students for a destination that will no longer exist when they graduate while pushing them over a road with a constantly moving target destination.

Building OPIT

With these challenges and his experiences from Docsity in mind, Riccardo set to work designing the kind of education he wished that he had received. He set out to create a university that would allow learners, at any stage in their career, to adapt and reinvent themselves for the changing world. The result was OPIT, which matriculated its first students in 2023.

With that in mind, OPIT courses are built around three pillars.

Pillar One: Bridging Theory and Practice

Universities often produce students with excellent theoretical knowledge of a subject area but with limited ability to apply that knowledge to real-world problems. It is how Riccardo felt about his knowledge and skills when he completed his electronic engineering degree.

OPIT degrees, on the other hand, are designed to provide students with not only a strong technical foundation but also an understanding of and the ability to develop real-world applications.

The OPIT faculty, recruited from some of the world’s leading businesses, play a central role in achieving this. Instead of relying on polished case studies published years after the fact, they use real-life workplace challenges as teaching tools.

Faculty members include practitioners and thought leaders from some of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Zorina Alliata, Principal AI and Generative AI Strategist at Amazon; Khaled Elbehiery, Senior Director and Network Engineer at Charter Communications; Andrea Gozzi, Head of Strategy and Partnership for the Digital Industries Ecosystem at Siemens; and Sabya Dasgupta, Lead Solution Architect at Microsoft.

For MSc programs, students complete this focus on application with the final Capstone Project, which encourages them to apply their knowledge to the real world through an industry internship.

Pillar Two: International and Multidisciplinary

As well as recruiting professors with an international and multidisciplinary profile, OPIT seeks to do the same with the cohort – people working in diverse fields and looking for ways to leverage the same technology to improve what they do. The diversity of the student profile helps break down both educational and industrial silos, encouraging multidisciplinary thinking and unexpected innovation. It can also give students a greater level of cultural awareness, which they may not have encountered before.

Courses involve online meetups between peers, allowing them to share challenges and learn through application. OPIT also hosts online events that allow students to connect with leaders from companies such as Morgan Stanley, PayPal, and Microsoft, to learn about the professional world today and forge networks for the future.

Pillar Three: Education That Fits Your Life

The third pillar of OPIT is that education should be flexible and fit into your life, rather than require you to put the rest of your life on hold to study. This is especially important for established professionals who want to adapt or reinvent themselves but don’t have the luxury of walking away from their work and other responsibilities for a few years to do so.

This is why OPIT courses are online by design – or “remote first,” as many companies brand it. This not only allows students to build study into their existing lives but also to develop experience working remotely as part of a distributed team, which are essential skills in today’s work environment.

OPIT Courses

Today, criteria such as “data literacy” and “comfortable working with AI” are often at the top of job descriptions. With these and other necessary skills in mind, OPIT launched with a BSc in Modern Computer Science and an MSc in Applied Data Science and AI.

Since then, they have also initiated a BSc in Digital Business and MSc degrees in Digital Business and Innovation, Responsible Artificial Intelligence, and Enterprise Cybersecurity. The first cohort of students celebrated their graduation ceremony on March 8, 2025.