Personalized Student Engagement at Scale: The Future of AI-Driven Communication in Higher Ed

With all the demographic, financial, political, and misperception challenges that colleges and universities face, how can they still create meaningful connections with prospective students, the foundation of their futures? The answer lies in the technological advance that dominates conversation but has yet to be well-applied in recruitment: AI. But AI is ready now, when combined with the human touch, to become part of your success meeting students where they are with powerful technological efficiency and effectiveness.

The Personalization Imperative

Today's students expect personalized experiences. As Brian Piper notes in Epic Content Marketing for Higher Education, “A teenager who submits a deposit on May 1 still receives dozens of generic emails over the summer.”

This disjointed communication approach has real consequences. It says to students: As much as we claim you are an individual to us, we are showing you with our communications that, well, you’re not. 

So consider Georgia State's innovative solution: an SMS chatbot named Pounce that, in last year’s admissions cycle alone, answered more than 200,000 student questions and cut “summer melt” by 22 percent, keeping 324 additional freshmen in the incoming class.

What AI Is Already Delivering

Other forward-thinking institutions are seeing remarkable results with AI-powered engagement that you can put to work for your recruitment too:

• The University of West Florida implemented “Argie,” a chatbot that produced a 35 percent jump in transfer confirmations across a full admissions cycle. 

• The University of Zurich partnered with HeyGen to rapidly translate health education videos into five languages.

And the tools that AI drives continue to prove their relevance to higher ed:

• Mainstay’s technology enables advisers to coach over 10,000 students weekly without additional staff.

• RNL Insight Hub provides fundraisers with real-time AI queries on gifts and inquiries, replacing static spreadsheets.

The common thread? While AI handles repetitive dialogue and data synthesis in direct communication with students, humans can focus on deeper coaching and relationship building.

Walking the Authenticity Tightrope

But AI-driven communication must be wielded carefully. It can help with hyper-personalization, but with nothing like the interest a person can take in each prospective student.

The risks are real: Poorly managed AI can result, for example, in template misuse or hallucinated answers that make your institution sound robotic, inept, or, worse, untrustworthy. As Brian Piper warns, speed should never come at the expense of connection.

The Five Guides for AI Use in Enrollment and Advancement

To implement AI-driven communication effectively:

1. Audit your CRM data first. Segment your audiences by your intent in engaging with them, not just by the stage of their association with your institution.
   
   

2. Create prompt libraries for your AI tools that account not just for language but also for intended tone, desired reading level, and empathy cues. In other words, make the libraries your brand guidelines for bots.
   
   

3. Always offer a “press 0 to talk to a human” escape route in every automation. Prize transparency over efficiency.
   
   

4. Every month, review the transcripts your AI bots generate from dialogues with your constituents. As you learn from the transcripts, feed high-volume questions back into the related knowledge bases and content calendars.
   
   

5. Finally, consistent with your values, monitor how AI impacts your equity priorities. For example, check that your AI bots’ algorithmic decisions are not mis-serving or under-serving first-gen or Pell-eligible students.
   
   

So How Do You Get a Meaningful Use of AI Rolling?

Here’s your roadmap, one meant to be methodical, not overwhelming:

1. Start by listening (Months 0-2): Mine your CRM, search logs and call-center notes to rank by priority the friction points revealed in that data between the information and communication your office/institution offers and how your key audiences respond.

2. Pilot a single constituent’s journey (Months 3-5): For example, focus on admitted-but-not-enrolled students with a chatbot that answers logistics questions and nudges FAFSA completion. Measure the chatbot’s success by the audience’s rate of completing the tasks that the chatbot emphasizes for their use.

3. Expand channels (Months 6-12): Now that you’ve got a soundly working chatbot engaging the audience well, accurately, and on task, it’s time to add features to the tool like triggered videos, multilingual SMS, and parent outreach.

4. Finally, close the loop (Ongoing): Connect engagement data to, for example, enrollment, advancement, and alumni systems so the lifetime relationship lives in one profile.

Looking Ahead

AI is rapidly becoming the communications backbone for institutions that want to scale service without ballooning payroll. The winners will be schools that pair machine speed with human warmth—allowing marketers, enrollment teams, and advancement officers to spend less time copying email templates and more time having the conversations only people can have.

The technology to transform student, alumni, and donor engagement is ready; the strategic decisions are up to us.