Iris, the AI Tutor
Iris is a tutor built into Artemis that you can ask questions of while you work. It already has the exercise and your latest submission in front of it, so you can ask about this task without explaining it first.
It is built to help you get there rather than to get there for you. Artemis does not allow it to give complete solutions or full code blocks, whatever your instructor has configured — so asking for the answer will not produce one, and asking why your answer is wrong usually will.
Choosing Whether to Use AI
The first time you open anything AI-powered in Artemis, you are asked to choose. This is your decision, not your instructor's, and it applies to your account.
Cloud uses current cloud models on Azure. Artemis states what that means: processing is GDPR-compliant, your data is stored on university datacenters, and your personal details — your registration number, your email address — are never sent to a model.
No AI leaves the rest of Artemis working exactly as it does now. You lose Iris, the automated AI feedback on modeling and text exercises, and AI-powered guidance; you lose nothing else.
Enable long-term memory is separate and can be turned off on its own. With it on, Iris remembers your learning preferences and past conversations so its help gets more personal over time. With it off, each conversation starts from nothing.
The chat panel puts the same decision in front of you in words: accepting confirms that you are at least 18 and that you agree to your interactions and the context around them — including your code — being processed, with nothing stored in the cloud. Choosing an option settles both; Decline leaves the chat closed and changes nothing else about Artemis.
Asking a Question
On an exercise, the Iris tab sits in the panel beside the problem statement. Opening it gives you an empty chat that already knows where you are.
The chip above the message box is the topic — the exercise Iris will answer about. The + button beside it changes that: point Iris at a different exercise, at a lecture, or at the course as a whole when your question is not about the task in front of you. The × on the chip removes the topic entirely, which is what you want for a general question.
Type the question and send it. Iris answers in the panel, and you can keep going: it remembers the conversation, so a follow-up like "why does that matter here?" works.
Under each answer are three controls: one copies the text, and the thumbs up and down rate it. Those ratings feed an aggregate that administrators can see, so they are how the people running Artemis find out that Iris is unhelpful. They are worth using for that reason, and they do not reach your instructors as individual conversations.
Where Else Iris Appears
The exercise chat is offered on programming and text exercises. On other types — modeling, quiz, file upload — there is no Iris tab, and in an exam there is none either, whatever the course settings say.
Beyond an exercise, Iris can answer about a lecture you have open, and about the course as a whole — which is the one to use for "where do I find" and "what is due when" questions. Your instructor switches Iris on or off for the whole course rather than place by place, so the difference between one exercise and another is its type, not a setting.
Your conversations are yours: they are part of the data export you can request of everything Artemis holds about you.
Getting Better Answers
Iris is as good as the question. Three things help.
Say what you tried. "I expected the list to be sorted after the first pass but it is unchanged" gets you further than "my code does not work", because the first tells Iris where to look.
Set the right topic. A question about last week's lecture asked with this week's exercise as the topic gets an answer about the wrong thing. Change the chip first.
Ask about the reasoning, not the answer. Iris cannot give you the solution, so a request for one wastes a turn. "Why is a list of observers better than calling each display directly?" is a question it can answer completely.
Related
- Iris for instructors — the settings behind the tutor you are talking to, including the support level that decides how much it gives away.
- Artemis Intelligence — where Iris sits among the other AI services and what each is responsible for.