CASE STUDY
ACADEMIC AI COPILOT
Top universities in every corner of the world are adapting to the new world of generative AI, ChatGPT, and other systems in the classroom. Some universities have banned the use of AI, and others have moved to all in-class work without laptops to ensure students are doing their work by themselves.
Our Founder & CEO, Christopher Sanchez, is also a Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the EGADE School of Business, the top MBA Program in Latin America. He is an Industry Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, Strategy, and Business at Stanford University and Cornell University for MBA, PhD, and Postdoctoral students with office hours. In his opinion, it didn’t make sense to bar the students from using these technological advancements; instead, they should embrace them. And that’s precisely what happened.
THE CHALLENGE
Usually, he would have had 20-25 students per term. But in 2023, when generative AI swept through every school, business board room, investor meeting, and new hour, he found himself with over 70 students.
As a full-time CEO, teaching a 70-student class was an insurmountable challenge to balance between work and the needs of the students who were excited to learn more about artificial intelligence, generative AI, AI Ethics, and what the future might hold.
THE PROCESS & SOLUTION
Understanding that cloning himself was not an option and that there was no way to reduce the student count, he turned to his team at Emergent Line to design, develop, and launch a fully functional AI Copilot to co-teach the class with him in under two weeks.
The Copilot was named Professor McEthical and worked with students 24 hours a day on the students’ schedule from the computer or phone. Students could also work with the system to complete projects, homework, and handle almost any task that the professor or TA usually needs to answer.
Professor McEthical also had one additional feature to help students understand the power and importance of data. The system can be trained on the homework and projects the students developed during the course. Students could see the impact of their coursework by comparing the two versions of Professor McEthcial and see which students’ work had the most impact on the results.
THE RESULT
The students and administration were thrilled with the development of Professor McEthical assisting Professor Sanchez with his students. MBA students could see firsthand the power of developing AI Copilots to solve complex problems, increase productivity, and the ability of different data to influence the outcomes of LLMs (Large Language Models.)
The first iteration of the system was queried over 2,000 times by the 70 students, and there were three total generations during the first class.
Professor Sanchez uses Professor McEthical as an example of how to develop Professional AI Copilots that can handle any number of tasks and the broader application of artificial intelligence in higher education.
