Smart Academic Advisors: Exploiting AI Chatbots as Virtual Advisors for Personalized Student Guidance

In today's higher education environment, students often depend on academic advisors for guidance on course selection, tracking academic progress, and resolving issues such as GPA warnings and prerequisite requirements. However, the increasing number of students and limited advisor availability can result in delayed or insufficient personalized support. This creates a gap in timely and personalized advising, leaving stu-dents vulnerable to academic obstacles. To address this challenge, we propose the development of an AI-powered chatbot aimed at assisting students with academic advising. This chatbot provides timely, accurate, and personalized advice regarding course enroll-ment, academic track decisions, and prerequisite management, functioning as a virtual academic advisor. By exploiting AI-driven systems, the “AOU BF” chatbot delivers essential information to help students make informed academic decisions, thereby reducing the workload on human advisors. This paper details the design, implementation, and evaluation of the AI chatbot, demonstrating its effectiveness in improving student engagement and enhancing the academic advising process.