How Students Use AI Search to Compare Courses: What to Verify

An AI assistant compares courses using what it can find and cross-check

When a Leaving Cert student asks an AI assistant to compare three courses, the answer is assembled from public pages: the course page, the CAO listing, national databases, review sites and rankings. A fact that is vague, undated or contradicted elsewhere gets dropped, distorted or replaced by a third party's version.

We found no public study measuring how many Irish applicants compare courses this way. The research we located covers enrolled students, not prospective applicants, so this article uses no usage statistic. It starts from something checkable, how these systems pick sources.

Google states in its AI features documentation that its AI features choose supporting pages while generating a response, and that no special optimisation is required. The lever is the quality and verifiability of your course pages.

This builds on our articles on AI recommendation criteria and programme page markup. For the wider picture, see our guide to recruiting more students.

What applicants actually ask when they compare

Most school leavers apply through the CAO, with offers driven by the points system, while many private colleges and postgraduate routes use direct applications. The questions below concern facts anyone can check.

A page that answers these six lines in plain text, not buried in a PDF prospectus, is easier to quote accurately than most competitors' pages.

Make each course page a record that can be checked

A verifiable page states precise facts, names its source and shows when it was last reviewed.

1. One course title and code everywhere. Course page, CAO listing, prospectus and open day materials should use the same name.
2. Awarding status in plain words. Say who awards the qualification and at what NFQ level. Do not imply a status you do not hold, particularly if the college is private.
3. Dated fees. State fees for each year of entry, what they cover and what costs extra.
4. Sourced outcomes. Any employment or progression figure should name the survey, year and population, with a link. Consumer law applies to how courses are marketed, as the CCPC explains.
5. A visible review date, changed only when the content really changes.

Point to official sources instead of replacing them

The strongest trust signal is a link to the official source. QQI maintains the national register of qualifications and quality assurance information, and the HEA publishes sector data. Link to them where you make a claim about status or quality.

These links serve two audiences. The applicant checks in one click. The assistant gets a second source that confirms, or contradicts, your page. If it contradicts, you want to find out before it does.

Avoid loose wording such as "fully recognised" when the status is more specific. Write exactly what the register says.

Align the website, listings and documents

An assistant also reads listings, forums and PDFs. Run a simple inventory for each course:

• the course page and any Irish-language version;
• the CAO listing and the Qualifax entry;
• the scholarship and grant pages;
• the prospectus PDF and open day pages;
• your Google business profile and social pages.

Give each sensitive field (title, duration, fees, points, start date) a named owner. The usual cause of contradictions is a prospectus left on last year's version.

Structured data helps machines read, it does not guarantee citation

Google documents Course structured data, and the vocabulary is defined at schema.org/Course. The markup must match what is visible on the page. No official source promises that markup leads to an AI citation. Treat it as good housekeeping.

Test what assistants say about you, on a schedule

Each term, put the same prompts to several assistants and note the discrepancies.

Keep the answers and the test date. Results vary from session to session, so a test is an alert, not a statistical measure. See also our piece on Gen Z AI school search.

When an assistant gets a fact wrong

Start by finding where the wrong fact came from. Ask the assistant for its sources, then open them. Often the error sits on a third-party listing, an old prospectus or a cached page rather than on your current course page.

Fix the source you control first, then update your page so the correct fact is easy to find and dated. For listings you do not control, such as a directory or a CAO entry, contact the publisher with the corrected detail. Record what you changed and retest at the next cycle.

What an on-site agent adds, and what stays with the institution

Skolbot Chat is an agent installed on the institution's website. It answers applicants from content the institution has published, qualifies the enquiry, offers an appointment or open day and passes the conversation to the team and the CRM. It supports advisers rather than replacing them.

An agent can only answer correctly if the pages are correct. Recurring questions without a clear answer on your site show which pages to fix. Nothing guarantees that it changes what an external assistant says about you. Checking the facts remains the institution's responsibility. For applicant information, the Data Protection Commission is the regulator, and your data protection officer should review the set-up.