Minneapolis, MN, January 16, 2024Kaleidoscope, a Full-Cycle Scholarship and Grant Management Platform, announced today the launch of a new tool that will enable organizations to identify when submitted application essays include AI-generated or plagiarized content.  

The feature release comes amid growing concerns over how high school students are leveraging popular AI tools like ChatGPT, Bing AI, and Google Bard when completing scholarship applications.  

According to a survey of 1,148 Class of 2024 students performed by job search platform Handshake, “eighty-five percent of this year’s seniors have heard of tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E.” 

As the popularity and use of AI tools increase daily, more administrators and executive directors of scholarship and grant-giving organizations are left wondering how much of the essays they read when reviewing applications have been generated by AI or copied from another source.  

The Kaleidoscope AI & Plagiarism Detection tool is designed to identify plagiarism and AI use in application essay responses. This tool utilizes advanced natural language processing technology, also known as NLP, and machine learning algorithms to perform extensive searches across the Internet and various databases. 

“Nearly every organization we work with has expressed concerns over the past year about the potential impact AI tools could have on their applications and application process,” said Pete Jacoby, CTO of Kaleidoscope. “This tool gives them easy access to data and reporting that can be quickly reviewed and acted upon as part of the application evaluation and selection processes,” he added. 

Kaleidoscope’s new AI and Plagiarism Detection tool was released to a small beta group of customers. Initial findings showed that AI-generated responses were detected in over seventeen percent of student applications and seven percent of applicants had at least a ten percent match on possible plagiarism. 

As of today, over 130 organizations using Kaleidoscope now have access to the new detection tool.  

“The AI landscape is evolving by the second,” said Jason Von Bank, CEO of Kaleidoscope. “We’re committed to leading the way when it comes to helping organizations understand how to navigate and manage generative AI as it inevitably makes its way into scholarship and grant applications,” he added.  

To see the Kaleidoscope AI & Detection tool in action, contact Andie Ostrowski at andie.ostrowski@mykaleidoscope.com.

About Kaleidoscope 

Kaleidoscope is a Full-Cycle Scholarship Platform (FSP) that gives organizations the tools and support they need to build and manage scholarship programs from start to finish, every year. Organizations partner with Kaleidoscope to build and manage scholarship applications, communicate with applicants and reviewers, complete a selection process, and manage disbursements. Learn more at https://www.mykaleidoscope.com/.