Despite adding new artificial intelligence portal remains relatively unknown among many members of the University community.
PennChat, which launched in July and completed its pilot phase a month later, gives the Penn community access to select Claude and ChatGPT large language models within the University’s network. Some users praised the platform’s secure AI access and document-generation capabilities, while others questioned the need for a separate portal.
Tiffany Hanulec — Information Systems and technology services and chief technology officer — wrote in a statement that the portal has “strong usage,” with nearly 6,000 registered users.
She added that ISC has implemented web search and image generation and will “continue to evolve the service over time” in response to user feedback. Previously, PennChat’s models were unable to query the web and had knowledge cutoffs in 2024 or 2025.
“The AI models themselves do not browse the Internet directly, but a controlled search capability retrieves current public information on the model’s behalf,” Hanulec wrote. “Your data remains protected, and Penn data is never used to train AI models.”
