Global has also been using AI in our own chatbot, Gerry GFAS, to answer client questions, speed up response times and provide quicker assistance with great success.
By Sherri Savasta
Financial aid is full of acronyms, and if you are like most aid administrators at any level, you are cognizant of financial aid acronyms such as SAI, FAFSA, R2T4, MPN, AGI and LEU, to name a few. One acronym that is flooding the news everywhere is AI. AI, in case you have missed it while working nonstop trying to fund your students, stands for Artificial Intelligence.
An article in Inside Higher Ed notes, “Artificial intelligence catapulted into the general public’s consciousness following OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. Institutions have begun to use AI to streamline processes in admissions, food delivery and student engagement.”
As administrators search for ways to assist students in the financial aid process, several uses for AI are emerging.
- Live chat with students who engage with your institution’s website. This can provide quicker answers to some of the easier questions students may have about the application process and give administrators more time to work with students on complex questions.
- Loan counseling. AI can answer student questions while offering 24/7 support. It can even analyze financial information to suggest repayment strategies.
- Automated tasks and streamlined communication with students. Like live chat benefits, AI can handle student FAQs and respond to basic inquiries, reducing the time administrators spend on basic questions.
- Meeting notetaker. Using a notetaker can save time on notes, recording, transcribing and summarizing meetings. It can also answer questions quickly in the meeting and will send notes to all participants after.
Global has also been using AI in our own chatbot, Gerry GFAS, to answer our clients’ questions, speed up response times and provide quicker assistance with great success.
Sherri Savasta is Global’s Director of Consulting. She has been with Global since 2006, bringing in-depth experience to financial aid processing solutions. She can be reached at 228.523.1072.