Macquarie University has incorporated an AI chatbot called Virtual Peer into the weekly teaching of two compulsory psychology courses. The system asks students questions and guides them through scenario-based exercises; the university says it is optional, with assessment conducted through online readings, tests and videos, as well as research assignments and exams. Classroom-based teaching will resume in 2027, with face-to-face and online formats alternating between semesters. After both courses were offered online in the second semester, one student said they had been disadvantaged and that a robot was used instead of a teacher and group discussion. It was stated that the bot has now replaced the optional weekly Zoom classes previously taught by paid academics. The university maintains that it designed the system to support educators, not replace them. The University of Sydney has also made Cogniti available to hundreds of academics and institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. Dr Alison Barnes warned that trying to paper over the workload crisis with AI could create more harmful problems.
Why it matters
This practice raises the question of how the quality of course support should be measured, particularly for students who need weekly feedback and group discussion. There is a clear gap between the university’s description of the system as an optional tool that supports educators and one student’s experience that the bot replaced interaction with teachers and peers. The alternating delivery of in-person and online classes shows that the issue concerns not only the use of technology but also teaching arrangements and academics’ workloads. The University of Sydney’s decision to make similar tools available to a broader academic community takes the debate beyond a single course practice. The open question is under what conditions artificial intelligence will remain a support tool and at what point it will replace human interaction.
Background
Australia is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: over the past 90 days, we published one story that mentioned it; that article was dated August 25, 2026.