Delta’s board of trustees moved to renew an annual contract for an AI chatbot with the company BlackBeltHelp (BBH), costing the school $96,417.70.
In the 2025 purchase agreement, the contract with BBH includes an annual 7 percent increase, which this year added $6,307.70 to the original cost.
The subscription, approved for renewal on Aug. 19, was previously approved in 2023 and 2024, according to documents ratifying purchase orders.
The AI tool, dubbed “Fierce the Mustang” and modeled after Delta’s mascot, is intended to help specifically with tech-related questions. It can be found on the bottom-right of the Mustang Tech Squad page on Delta’s website.
The tool is distinct from the LiveChat box featured on other pages of the Delta website, which encourages users to chat directly with a school employee that can assist them, or fill out a ticket if no person is available at that time.
“BBH was initially set up specifically to support students and the tech loan program, so it was not rolled out to other webpages,” says Dave Marciel, Delta’s Director of Information Technology.
In Collegian testing, however, Fierce does not always provide up-to-date information.
Upon being prompted with the chatbot’s suggested prompt, “Return Tech Loaner Devices,” the bot responds in part with, “If you have checked out a loaner tech device, please return it at the end of each semester. Devices Loaned in Fall 2023 must be returned by Dec. 15, 2023.”
When the prompt is updated to specify the current year and semester, the same response is given.
Rephrasing the prompt to “what day are loaner laptops due to be returned in fall 2025?” gives the user a generic response describing Delta’s Loaner Program and directs them to choose from a variety of options, one of which is the suggested prompt.
Similarly, the bot advises to “Mark your calendars!” for “Thursday, August 10, 2023,” when asked, “what date can I borrow?”
To “what date can I return a borrowed laptop?” Fierce responds with a concise and uncapitalized “sure,” and when prompted with “What can I borrow?” replies with the misspelled “I am here to answere your queries.”
According to Joe Heltzel, Assistant Vice President for Customer Success with BBH, the system is “not true AI in the sense of what we’d consider AI today…it’s working from a fixed FAQ…when the question comes in its pulled into the system, internally the AI picks up on key words.”
The chatbot is designed to provide 24/7 student support, as BlackBeltHelp’s website advertises, but when prompted with tech-related queries such as, “My computer is not turning on,” or, “What happens if I break a computer on campus?” the bot replies to both with, “Delta has several places that you may use to check your mail,” before recommending the user visit several on-campus locations.
Marciel says, “it has a feature to request a live support person from BBH available 24/7. If the support person is not able to assist the student at that moment, they escalate the ticket back to the SJDC IT Department for an MTS member to address.”
The contracted 24/7 live support is based on data given to BBH by the school, said Heltzel.
The 2025 purchase order includes a $75,130 charge to the school based on a projection of an anticipated 11,000 interactions.
“The contract is written as such so it’s up to 11,000 interactions …I don’t want to say use it or lose it, use it or you don’t. That’s what the institution based on historical data, and our analysis of the data as well,” said Heltzel.
These interactions include chats with the AI, interactions with a human agent, emails, and phone calls through BBH, provided the latter last longer than a minute.
If Delta goes above the projection, it will pay more based on the original service agreement. If it goes under the projection, the original baseline payment to BBH is maintained.
“BBH is moving away from their current interaction model…We recognize that the interaction model is antiquated,” said Heltzel.
