Time well spent: AI helps UB students navigate choices that matter

With thousands of options and limited time, it’s not always clear which experiences will shape a student’s future, and which will just fill space on a calendar.

This past spring, a group of international graduate students in the UB School of Management’s MS in Business Analytics program set out to tackle that challenge head-on. Their goal? Help students make smarter decisions, faster, without feeling overwhelmed.

The result is a proof of concept for a smart advising tool that uses artificial intelligence to recommend courses, events and co-curricular activities based on a student’s goals, interests and career path. Unlike traditional planning resources, this one will pull from a live, evolving database. One that reflects changes to class offerings, community programming, campus organizations and even national conferences.

Instead of searching across dozens of websites and portals, students using the tool can get highly specific suggestions: what courses align with a career in data analytics, which cybersecurity workshops are happening in Buffalo next semester or which student organizations offer hands-on experience in entrepreneurship.

What makes the tool especially effective is what it leaves out. It strips away the noise, such as events that aren’t relevant, or opportunities that don’t connect, and focuses on what matters most for each student’s unique trajectory.

It’s also built to adapt. As new data enters the system, class updates, event postings, student input, the tool recalibrates, making its recommendations sharper over time. That feedback loop is key to the next phase of development, which will use retrieval-augmented generation and agentic AI technology to enhance query responses in real time.

Now, Dominic Sellitto, BS ’13, MBA ’14, clinical assistant professor of management science and systems, is taking the proof of concept for this tool to develop and expand it for pilot use by staff. If testing goes well, it could become a go-to resource for academic advisors and campus offices as soon as this year.

And while the technology is impressive, the heart of the idea remains simple: empower students to spend their time more intentionally. Because sometimes, one good recommendation can change everything.

Just ask Sellitto, who is now assistant faculty director of the school’s Center for AI Business Innovation. Back when he was a student, a professor’s course suggestion, one that didn’t appear on any checklist, sparked a shift in direction. He dropped a class that no longer fit, enrolled in a cybersecurity course and ended up changing his major entirely. That decision set him on the path to his current work in AI.

It’s that kind of moment that this project quietly aims to multiply — with a little help from smart technology, and a lot of trust in what happens when the right opportunity comes at the right time.

This story was written by AI and edited by a member of the UB School of Management Marketing and Communications Office.