Washington, DC, Sept. 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EAB announced today new artificial intelligence (AI) features are being added to Navigate, the company’s flagship customer relationship management (CRM) software, to help time-strapped advisors provide more high-impact support to students. The additions will help students get faster and more accurate answers to common questions through a conversational AI knowledge bot, help advisors and other support staff write more effective student communications, and give administrators better tools to analyze institutional student success efforts.
“We‘ve spent years researching and developing AI that would enable advisors to spend less time on administrative tasks such as composing routine emails to the hundreds of students assigned to them, so they can spend more one-on-one time advising students who will really benefit from that individual attention,” said President of EAB Technology, Scott Schirmeier.
A new campaign content creator within Navigate will use generative AI to help advisors draft communications that encourage students to take necessary actions, such as enrolling for a class required for their major or scheduling a planning session to ensure they graduate on time. The new campaign content creator will enable advisors to select from a range of common message templates and use them as a writing prompt or leverage AI to help them create customized messages from scratch. Advisors can also use AI to see recommendations for how they might adjust the tone to add urgency or use more supportive language without changing the essential meaning of the message.
Additionally, an AI-powered knowledge bot will give students an easier way to get support, instructions, and answers to common questions straight from their smartphones while easing the burden on university staff. Unlike traditional chatbots that must be trained to recognize and respond to specific queries, Navigate’s knowledge bot learns on its own to interpret variations on student questions and deliver more accurate answers and links to relevant resources.
“Especially post-pandemic, students are arriving at school needing more intense support than ever before, and it is important to us to give them every opportunity to succeed,” said Jay Jacobs, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management at The University of Vermont. “We are excited to pilot EAB’s new AI features to help staff save time, create deeper connections with our students, and have a measurable impact on their lives.”
Other AI enhancements in Navigate will make it easier for staff and administrators to generate reports on institutional student retention and success efforts. While Navigate has always included a set of report templates commonly used by university student success leaders, the new AI capability will allow users to employ natural language to generate reports and suggest additional fields and parameters college staff might consider to enhance those reports.
“Navigate’s new AI features will ensure that administrators with even the most basic training can get fast, targeted insights into potential performance issues associated with any cohort of students so problems can be addressed and solved more quickly,” Schirmeier added.
Administrators, faculty, advisors, and students at hundreds of colleges and universities use Navigate to provide a student-centric experience while improving recruitment, retention, and graduation rates. EAB has assembled a cohort of institutions to test the new features and expects to expand availability in 2024. To read more about EAB’s research on responsible uses of AI in higher education, please read this recent blog post: “Six Innovative Ways Higher Ed Can Embrace AI.”
About EAB
At EAB, our mission is to make education smarter and our communities stronger. We work with more than 2,500 institutions to drive transformative change through data-driven insights and best-in-class capabilities. From kindergarten to college to career, EAB partners with leaders and practitioners to accelerate progress and drive results across enrollment, student success, institutional strategy, and data analytics. We work with each partner differently, tailoring our portfolio of research, technology, and marketing and enrollment solutions to meet the unique needs of every leadership team, as well as the students and employees they serve. Learn more at eab.com.
