New Delhi, September 07: UNIVO Education, an edtech startup, has begun deploying conversational AI advertising for its university partners, becoming the First Indian edtech brand to run campaigns on ChatGPT. The capability is live for multiple programs and is being run directly by UNIVO rather than through a commerce media intermediary.
The move follows OpenAI’s expansion of ChatGPT advertising to India. Most early advertisers in the market have accessed the platform through third-party partners. UNIVO has built and is operating the capability directly.
A prospective learner researching an online degree is making a decision that spans two or three years, carries significant cost, and shapes a career. That research has historically run through search engines, comparison sites, and college forums. What is shifting is where it begins. Increasingly, users are turning to conversational AI to explore programs, compare options and make sense of complex choices, and many view these platforms as a more credible and contextual source of information than a conventional list of search results. For us, being present in these conversations is therefore critical.
“Course discovery is changing right in front of us,” said Nitin Golani, CEO, UNIVO Education. “Learners are no longer typing three words into a search box. They are describing their situation, asking what suits someone working full time in a smaller city, and expecting a considered answer. If that is where the question is being asked, a credible institution needs to be present in that conversation”
The capability sits within UNIVO’s wider learner discovery and engagement stack, which the company builds and operates for university partners. Those programs now form one of the largest online learning ecosystems in Indian higher education, reaching over 2.5 lakh learners across 16,500 pin codes and 150+ countries, from district towns in India to workplaces around the world.
As conversational AI becomes a mainstream route to course discovery, UNIVO is building the capability to help prospective learners find the path that fits them. India is preparing to bring crores of new learners into higher education over the coming decade, and most of them will begin that journey with a question rather than an application form. Being present when that question is asked is not a media strategy. It is a matter of access.
