AI use at the University of Bayreuth

The University of Bayreuth enables you to access ChatGPT and DALL-E securely and free of charge via existing licences. As you may have already seen on the IT Service Centre's website or through your own work with Microsoft Office 365, we use Microsoft Copilot for this purpose. You can log in there with your existing University of Bayreuth bt account. If you use Copilot registered in this way, you benefit from compliance with European data protection guidelines and copyright law. Copilot uses ChatGPT for text generation and DALL-E for image generation.

You can also use open source models in the Academic Cloud. The AI models available in the Academic Cloud include Llama, from the Facebook group Meta, the top European AI model Mistral from France and Nemotron, from chip giant Nvidia. You can also try out exciting LLMs (Large Language Models) such as Sauerkraut LM, an AI specialised in the German language, or the Chinese AI Deepseek R1, which is currently at the top of the AI models. As the software is not hosted in China, but on German servers by the GWDG (Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen), there is no risk of students or university staff being spied on during use and data being passed on to third parties.

How do you access these AI services?

AcademicCloud:

open in your browser https://academiccloud.de/services and choose "Föderierte Anmeldung"

Select ‘University of Bayreuth’ and then log in with bt-identifier

Click on the ‘Open Tool’ button on the ‘Chat AI’ service card.

Copilot:

Visit Copilot or Bing https://copilot.cloud.microsoft.com /  https://www.bing.com

Log in with your bt ID (btxxxxx@myubt.de). You will be redirected to a University of Bayreuth login page to enter your usual password.

Important: Your password is never forwarded to Microsoft. The university’s ITS services verify your identity, and Microsoft is only informed that you are an authorized member of the University of Bayreuth.

Once logged in, you can use Copilot via an existing text input field or by accessing the “loop symbol” in the top right corner.

Please Note: Logging in with the university’s official ID (bt ID) ensures compliance with Microsoft’s special data protection agreements. This includes the assurance that your data will not be used for further training of the AI model.

Accessing Copilot (or ChatGPT) without an ID or with a private ID does not provide these assurances. Students are advised against such use, and it is not permitted for official use by employees.

The University of Bayreuth does not provide “Copilot for Microsoft 365” for Microsoft 365 Office products via campus licenses due to high costs (EUR 33 or more per month per user). This means that features like Copilot integration in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint are not available to university members through these licenses.

The free Copilot product is not subject to the contractual and data protection conditions of the Microsoft 365 A3 campus license. “Copilot for Web/Edge” is subject to commercial data protection without a separate data processing agreement (DPA). Therefore, it is not recommended for use with personal and confidential data and is only suitable for limited use

Basics on using AI-generated content

The same requirements apply as for official research on the open Internet.

Use must be considered, careful and critical.

No support can be provided for the use of AI functions.

Prompts should not contain any personal data.

Prompts must not disclose confidential content.

Prompts must not manipulate the AI ​​application.

Prompts should not circumvent any protective mechanisms of the AI ​​application.