This page summarizes what Purple can do, what it cannot do, and how to use it responsibly at the UW. 

What Purple Can Do (Capabilities) 

• Draft, edit, and summarize content - Create and refine emails, reports, meeting notes, presentations, instructional materials, and research summaries. 
• Support teaching and learning - Explore concepts, create study materials, generate rubrics, and brainstorm assignments.   
• Assist with analysis – Organize information, identify themes, and summarize findings.  
• Support technical and coding work - Generate and explain code, suggest debugging steps, and troubleshoot technical problems.  
• Brainstorm and problem solve - Generate ideas, compare options, and work through scenarios. 
• Provide a UW-managed environment - Access approved generative AI models in UW’s Microsoft Azure environment, which provides strong identity, access, security, and compliance controls. 

What Purple Cannot Do (Limitations) 

• Guarantee accuracy, completeness, or timeliness – Purple can produce outputs that are wrong, incomplete, outdated, or misleading, including “hallucinations” (false information that sounds credible). Performance varies by topic and prompt, and Purple may not reflect recent events or UW changes (knowledge cutoff).” 
• Verify outputs – Purple does not reliably fact-check or validate sources. 
• Replace human judgement - Purple supports people, but human expertise, judgement, interpersonal interactions, and creativity remain at the center of all work. 
• Provide professional advice - Purple is not a substitute for medical, legal, financial, mental health, or other professional guidance. 
• Serve as official UW guidance – Outputs do not represent official UW guidance, policy, or institutional decisions—information must be confirmed through appropriate University channels and resources. 
• Understand full context - Purple may miss nuance, situational details, or local context. 
• Avoid bias – Purple may reflect or amplify societal bias. 
• Access UW systems and integrated data sources – Purple does not currently integrate with UW systems or data repositories (for example, Microsoft 365/O365 services such as SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, or Exchange) and cannot automatically retrieve content from sites or resources that require UW sign-in (SSO). Any future integrations would be evaluated separately and would require appropriate security review and data-owner approval before use. 

Responsible Use 

FERPA (Applies to Both Inputs and Outputs) 

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. 

Inputs: Only Use Purple with Approved Data Types 

Purple is not approved for all data types. Do not enter the following into Purple: 

• HIPAA-regulated data, including protected health information (PHI). 
• UW Medicine Data (UW Medicine is continuing to evaluate Purple through limited pilots). 
• Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) or confidential research data. 
• Other sensitive or regulated data. 

Outputs: Review and Share Carefully  

• Review outputs for accuracy and bias. 
• Ensure outputs do not include protected information before sharing. 

Follow UW and UW Medicine Policies, Guidelines, and Expectations 

• Review and follow the UW GenAI General Use Guidelines and, if applicable, the UW Medicine AI Policy.   
• UW Medicine employees: use UW Medicine Chat for UW Medicine data. 
• Students: confirm your instructor’s expectations around using AI. Unauthorized use may be considered a violation of the Student Conduct Code, WAC 478-121.