Meet Herbot
The AI sidekick born from 20 years of connecting students with their dream careers — now helping education providers never lose another enrolment.
The Story Behind Herbot
We've spent two decades listening to students
Since 2005, Course Finder Group (originally Career FAQs) has been on a mission to help Australians find the right education and career pathways. We started with 45 comprehensive career guides that became essential resources in schools, TAFEs, and universities across the country. As the world went digital, so did we — building Australia's leading network of course comparison sites and helping thousands of students every year navigate their educational choices and career journeys.
Over those 20 years, we've facilitated hundreds of thousands of conversations between students and education providers. We've seen what works. We've seen what doesn't. And more importantly, we've seen what gets missed.
The problem we kept seeing
Education providers were losing enrolments — not because their courses weren't great, but because of timing. A student would submit an enquiry at 7 PM on a Tuesday. Or Saturday morning. Or during the holidays. By the time someone from the admissions team responded, that student had already moved on. The lead went cold. The opportunity vanished.
We watched providers spend thousands on marketing, only to see half their leads evaporate because they couldn't respond fast enough. We saw databases full of "uncontactable" students who weren't actually unreachable — they just needed the right message at the right time delivered through the right channel.
And we kept thinking: there has to be a better way.
Enter Herbot
In 2025, after generating, delivering and analysing hundreds of thousands of student enquiries and partnering with well over 250 education providers across Australia, we built something new. Not just another chatbot. Not another "set it and forget it" automation tool. We built Herbot — an AI-powered engagement assistant trained on two decades of real student conversations.
Herbot knows how Australian students talk about education. The questions they ask. The concerns they raise. The language that feels natural versus the language that feels robotic. Herbot understands the difference between "just browsing" and "ready to book," between "not interested" and "not now."
And most importantly, Herbot never sleeps. Never takes lunch. Never lets a lead slip through the cracks.
Built on 20 years of know-how
Herbot isn't just smart — Herbot is educated. Built on Course Finder Group's experience facilitating hundreds of thousands of student-provider connections over 20 years, Herbot understands successful conversation patterns, common objections, and effective engagement strategies. Every message Herbot sends is shaped by two decades of understanding what actually works in Australian vocational and tertiary education.
But here's what makes Herbot special: empathy. We didn't want an assistant that just spits out sales information. We wanted someone (or somebot) who genuinely cares about helping students find the right path. So we built in compliance guardrails, empathetic language, on-brand tone and the ability to know when to step back and let your human team take over.
What Herbot does
Herbot has two core missions:
Speed to Lead
Respond to every new enquiry within 60 seconds and get the student booked into your team's calendar while they're warm, engaged, and ready to talk.
Cold Lead Reactivation
Re-engage the leads sitting in your "uncontactable" folder with empathetic, perfectly timed follow-ups that actually get responses.
The result? More conversations. More bookings. More enrolments. Without hiring more staff.
Powered by Course Finder Group
StudentIgnite is the newest member of the Course Finder Group family — and Herbot carries forward the same mission we started with 20 years ago: making it easier for students to connect with the education providers and courses which can change their lives.
We're still the same team helping students find their pathways. We've just added a smart and empathetic AI sidekick who works around the clock to make sure no student gets left behind.
Our Values
Agility
Herbot adapts in real-time. Every conversation is different, and Herbot learns from each one to get better at booking meetings and re-engaging cold leads.
Collaboration
Herbot isn't here to replace your admissions team — Herbot is here to work with them. Your advisors focus on building relationships. Herbot handles the groundwork.
Innovation
We're constantly pushing the boundaries of what conversational AI can do in education. Herbot gets smarter every week through continuous learning and prompt optimisation.
Accountability
Every message Herbot sends is logged. Every conversation is visible. Your team has complete oversight and control, always.
Curiosity
Herbot draws on insights from hundreds of thousands of student enquiries across our network — but we never stop learning. Every conversation teaches us something new. We're constantly improving, constantly asking "how can we do this better?"
Resilience
Herbot never gives up on a lead. Follow-ups happen automatically. Cold leads get re-engaged. No student falls through the cracks.
Integrity
Herbot never gives course advice. Never discusses funding specifics. Never breaks compliance rules. Trust and transparency are built into every line of code.
The Team Behind Herbot
StudentIgnite is brought to you by the team at Course Finder Group — the same people who've been connecting Australian students with education providers since 2005.
Will Santow
Founder & CEO
Bishwadeep KC
Senior Developer
Laura Atkinson
Partnerships & Performance
Bronwyn Jones
Product & Strategy
Muhammad Waqas
Senior Developer
Together, we've built Australia's largest course comparison network. Now we're helping education providers turn more enquiries into enrolments — with a little help from our newest team member, Herbot.
Why We Built This
At Course Finder Group, we've always believed in the transformative power of education. We've watched thousands of students find their calling, change careers, and build better futures — all because they found the right course at the right time.
But we also saw too many students slip away. Not because they weren't interested. Not because the courses weren't right. But because the timing didn't line up. Because someone didn't follow up. Because life got busy and the opportunity passed.
Herbot exists to make sure that doesn't happen anymore. Every student who reaches out deserves a response. Every provider who invests in marketing deserves to see results. And every enrolment that's meant to happen shouldn't be lost to bad timing.
Join Our Growing Network
Ready to meet Herbot? See how 60-second response times and intelligent and empathetic follow-ups can transform your enrolment pipeline.