fidzu : cms

Your website may have the information people need. But the way they discover and evaluate their options is changing, with AI-generated answers becoming part of the journey.

EAB's survey of more than 5,000 U.S. high school students, conducted in late 2025 and published in February 2026, 46% reported using AI tools during their college search, up from 26% in spring 2025. A separate EAB survey published in August 2026 found that 57% of more than 2,500 U.S. parents surveyed had used AI to evaluate colleges and compare options for their children.

Together, these findings suggest that students and families are adding conversational tools to the ways they research universities. For institutions, that raises a practical question: could a more guided experience also help people make sense of the information on their own websites?

Growing adoption doesn't mean trust is guaranteed. Pew Research Center found that 66% of U.S. adults were extremely or very concerned about people getting inaccurate information from AI. For institutions exploring AI-assisted guidance, that makes accuracy, transparency, and testing with real users central to the experience.

For Higher Education institutions, this raises a practical question: could a more guided experience help students and families make sense of institutional information while preserving accuracy, trust, and control?

On October 29, 2026, at 9:30 am PT / 12:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm GMT, join James Hall, Product Lead for Websites at Everyone TV, as he chats with Joe Kwan of the University of Waterloo, and John Tran, CTO at ImageX about "Navigation to Guidance Using AI to Improve Digital Experiences". They'll share a behind-the-scenes look at an AI-powered admissions advisor proof of concept, with practical lessons for anyone exploring where AI could improve a digital experience.

Start with the questions people are trying to answer

The University of Waterloo and ImageX began by working with Waterloo's graduate and undergraduate admissions teams to understand the student journey.

Where were students getting stuck? Which questions came up repeatedly? Where did search and navigation fall short? And when did students need guidance from a person?

Those conversations shaped a conversational prototype designed to help prospective students find trusted information, compare programs, understand requirements, and navigate next steps.

The project offers a useful starting point for other organizations: identify a specific moment where people struggle, then explore whether AI could help. That gives teams a concrete problem to investigate and a clearer basis for deciding whether to invest further.

Find out what users actually think

A working prototype is only part of the story. The team also tested the experience directly with prospective students. Research showed strong interest in a more conversational way to explore university information. It also surfaced important considerations around privacy, tone, usability, content quality, transparency, and trust.

The webinar will explore what the team learned through that testing and where human guidance remains essential.

The session will focus on discovery, prototyping, and user research, and what those stages can help an organization understand before moving toward production.

Where Drupal fits

An AI-assisted experience raises questions about the information behind it: Where does it come from? Who maintains it? How is it reviewed? And what happens when it changes?

For the Drupal community, the session will explore the role Drupal can play as the governed content foundation behind these experiences, connecting AI assistance to institutional information that an organization manages and trusts. For marketing, digital, and service leaders, the broader question is equally relevant: how can you make information easier to use while retaining oversight of its quality and accuracy?

You don't need to work with Drupal or in higher education to benefit from the discussion. The approach is relevant to teams considering AI for complex information journeys across nonprofits, public services, and businesses.

What you'll take away

Join the webinar to explore:

• How discovery with internal teams can uncover AI use cases worth investigating.
• What prospective students thought about using AI to explore university information.
• What user testing revealed about trust, privacy, tone, transparency, and usability.
• Where human guidance remains essential.
• How governed content can support AI-assisted experiences.
• How to validate an idea with real users before moving toward production.

Whether you're a Drupal practitioner, a higher education leader, or someone responsible for a complex website, this session offers a practical example of moving from an AI idea to an experience you can test and evaluate.

Join James Hall, John Tran and Joe Kwan on October 29, 2026, at 9:30 am PT / 12:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm GMT for From Navigation to Guidance Using AI to Improve Digital Experiences.