Purple is available to everyone in the UW community, including faculty, staff, students, and UW Medicine employees.

Before you start using Purple, review the UW GenAI General Use Guidelines and the following if they relate to your role: 

• Students: Follow your instructor's AI use policies. Unauthorized use may be considered a violation of the Student Conduct Code, WAC 478-121. 
• UW Medicine, including UW School of Medicine: UW Medicine AI Policy. 
• Faculty/Staff: You may use Purple: 
  • Consistent with your role(s) at the University. It is not intended for personal use. 
  • With FERPA-protected education records when they are necessary to carry out your legitimate University business. 

Don’t use Purple with: 

• UW Medicine data, as defined by the UW Medicine AI Policy Glossary. Use UW Medicine Chat for this data. 
• HIPAA-protected PHI or other personally identifiable health data.  
• DoD classified data or any Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). 
• Credit card information, financial account information, or other highly sensitive personal or regulated data. 
• Any other data that meets the classification criteria for UW Level 4. 

Yes! If you are a contractor who requires access, please submit a request via the Support Form. We will work with your manager to get their approval. 

Yes! Please check out the following resources:

• Purple Quick Start Guide — Introduces you to the basics so you can start using Purple right away.
• Purple Complete User Guide — Provides comprehensive instructions for navigating and using Purple.

Just a web browser. Purple is web-based and works in any modern browser.

Purple can help you generate a wide range of content, including:

• Writing & Communication: Emails, documents, reports, quizzes, debates, and more.
• Creative & Ideation: Brainstorming, storytelling, exploring approaches to planning and strategy.
• Technical & Coding: Code generation, debugging, database design, workflow automation.
• Data & Analysis: Data interpretation, budget planning, research assistance.
• Learning & Support: Tutoring aides, and academic writing support.

Purple supports Personal Agents and System Agents. To learn more, check out the following resources:

• Personal Agents – Explains how to setup Personal Agents in Purple.
• Comparing Personal Agents and System Agents – Compares Personal Agents and System Agents in Purple so you can decide which option best fits your needs.

Prompting is the method of instructing the AI to produce relevant and accurate outputs by providing clear context, expectations, and instructions. Good prompting bridges the gap between AI knowledge and user needs, improving response quality and usefulness.

Use the PACE framework to help Purple understand what you want to accomplish and deliver tailored results:

• Problem: Define the issue to solve.
• Action: Specify the task for the AI.
• Context: Provide necessary background info.
• Expectations: Set output style and quality criteria.

How you use Purple is up to you—different roles may find it helpful in different ways, and you can explore its features in the ways that best support your work. 

To explore different use case scenarios, refer to How can Purple help you? 

Use these resources to learn how to use Purple responsibly and understand its limits and data practices:

• Responsible Use and Data Guidelines — Explains how to use Purple thoughtfully, what kinds of information should not be entered or uploaded, and why outputs still require careful human review.
• Capabilities and Limitations — Summarizes what Purple can do, what it cannot do, and how to use it responsibly.
• Understand AI Hallucinations - Explains what AI hallucinations are and how to recognize them. 
• Validate AI Responses - Explains why AI validation matters and outlines when, what, and how to validate AI responses before using them.

Purple is designed to align with federal student privacy requirements under FERPA, which means University employees may use FERPA-protected education records within Purple when doing so as part of legitimate University business. 

For more information, refer to Purple and FERPA-Protected Data Usage Guidelines.

In short, yes. Access to chat history is strictly controlled and limited to specific authorized situations, such as: 

• Providing user support (that you request)
• Complying with applicable legal obligations (including public record requests)
• Responding to a cybersecurity event

Any access is logged and auditable, and there is no general or informal ability to browse user conversations.

For more information, refer to Chat Retention and Deletion and Manage Your Purple Chat History. 

Purple is not approved for the following types of data:

• UW Medicine data, as defined by the UW Medicine AI Policy Glossary. Use UW Medicine Chat for this data.
• HIPAA-protected PHI or other personally identifiable health data.  

Users from UW Medicine and UW School of Medicine may use Purple for other use cases in compliance with the UW Medicine AI Policy.  

Purple can help with a wide range of University activities including:

• Teaching: Aiding in streamlining course content creation, coordinating assignment feedback, brainstorming student tutoring support.
• Research: Literature reviews, data analysis assistance, research writing support, support for drafting request for proposals.
• Administrative Tasks: Support for drafting documents, meeting summaries, workflow automation.
• Study assistance: Writing help, academic guidance.
• Creative Projects: Support in content generation, brainstorming, design assistance.

Purple can help support instructors with:

• Teaching materials: Support tasks such as creating lesson plans, quizzes, test questions.
• AI integration support: Support with ideas on how to use AI in instruction.
• Promoting AI literacy: Aiding in understanding AI capabilities, limitations, and responsible use.
• Academic tasks assistance: Aiding in research, drafting, refining, and editing.

Purple has not been rolled out to students yet; however, a faculty member or supervisor can request sponsored access for students via the Purple Support form. Make sure to include the students’ UW NetIDs or email addresses.

Instructors may set specific rules about using AI tools in their courses. If you are an instructor interested in incorporating AI into the classroom, AI+Teaching is a great resource.

Students should always review the course syllabus and applicable departmental guidelines before using Purple for coursework.

Yes! There are live Zoom trainings with AI experts and weekly office hours. Review the AI Calendar and attend.

Yes! Find Purple documentation on our website here.

• You can join the AI community of Practice with your Net ID to connect on AI topics. It provides opportunities for collaboration, peer support, and sharing best practices.
• Review full calendar of AI events here.

For a list of approved tools, enter “AI” in the search field in the UW Software Catalog.

Use the Purple support form for technical issues.

• Check our AI events calendar
• Use the Purple support form and we will help!

The Purple web page is the best place to get the latest news and updates about Purple.

Use the Purple support form and we will help!

Purple runs in Microsoft Azure, which is covered by Microsoft's sustainability reporting and net-zero commitments. We have intentionally excluded the most resource-intensive models in an effort to minimize environmental impacts.

Yes, Purple is web-based and should work on mobile devices through your browser, though the experience may be optimized for desktop use.

No, Purple is a secure enterprise tool for accessing approved generative AI models within UW’s Microsoft Azure environment. It is not a UW-developed foundation AI model or tool. Purple uses commercially available generative AI models delivered through nebulaONE®, a managed Azure-based platform from Cloudforce, integrated into UW’s enterprise infrastructure. 

Data entered into Purple remains within UW's Azure environment and is not used to train public AI models.

Yes, Purple includes usage limits to ensure reliable access for everyone. However, most users will never reach them. These limits are only reached for users with high-volume or intensive use cases (such as running continuous or large-scale requests).

A usage percentage displays in the upper right corner of the app, and you’ll be notified if you reach 100%. If you hit your limit, your access will be paused until the reset date shown in the notification. 

All AI tools have limits, including paid plans—they simply offer higher usage allowances. If you need an alternative for high-volume research purposes, connect with UWIT’s Research Computing group, via the Research Computing Consulting Intake Form.

Currently, Purple does not offer API access (API keys are not available). This feature may be available in the future.