United KingdomEducation2020 – ongoing

Durham University

Holly conversational AI admissions assistant

Durham's Holly admissions assistant answered 98% of student enquiries, according to ICS.AI

WorkingVendor case studyVendor ↗

Problem

Prospective international students needed answers outside the university's office hours. Admissions staff also faced large volumes of routine enquiries.

Approach

Durham and ICS.AI developed Holly, which went live in 2020. The assistant answered admissions questions and recorded follow-up actions in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Results

98%student enquiries successfully answered across 41,000 queries, according to ICS.AIVendor case study[1]

45%queries received outside office hours, according to ICS.AIVendor case study[1]

Takeaway

Out-of-hours demand accounted for a substantial share of enquiries. Durham said pandemic disruption complicated comparisons with its previous workload.

Sources

AI Assistant discovers 45% of prospective student queries come out of hours
ICS.AI3 Aug 2022Vendor publication

Source summaries

[1]ICS.AI3 Aug 2022

ICS.AI reported Holly's 98% answer rate across 41,000 queries and said 45% arrived outside office hours. Durham's collaboration-services head described CRM integration and cautioned that pandemic conditions affected baseline comparisons.

Full details are in the original sources.

Added 1 Nov 2026 · Updated 1 Nov 2026