Gies College of Business faculty are leaning into the AI revolution by making it a core part of the classroom experience. Instructors across the College are using custom chatbots to create a more agile and enriched learning environment.
AI chatbots use large language models (LLMs) to understand intent, patterns, and relationships in language, allowing them to generate original responses. They differ from traditional rules-based models that only respond to specific keywords or pre-written scripts.
“With an AI chatbot, students can get specific answers about syllabi and logistics 24/7, which frees up time for faculty to focus on enriched course content and personalized feedback,” said Melanie Wiscount, an associate learning designer at Gies Business, who partners with instructors to develop bespoke chatbot solutions. “During this rollout, we’ve seen a measurable decrease in both the volume of questions posted by students in a course’s weekly Q&A discussion forums and the number of emails sent to i-support@illinois.edu.”
Taming the Tax Code
One early adopter is Mandi Alt, a senior instructor of accountancy who leads the College’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, which is projected to serve more than 800 taxpayers this season. She says the AI chatbot is redefining how students master complex rules and regulations.
Alt initially sought an AI tool to solve a significant bottleneck: the overwhelming volume of IRS publications and internal policy manuals that students had to navigate.
"I had a big Box folder with hundreds of publications from the IRS and documents that I had written,” said Alt. “Students would have to search through everything to try to find the right information."
By feeding these vetted documents into a custom chatbot, Alt saw a 75% drop in repetitive administrative queries. This shift allows her to focus on high-impact mentorship and expanding community partnerships rather than answering basic questions.
This chatbot’s strength lies in its "walled garden" approach. Unlike a general Google search, which can surface outdated or incorrect tax advice, this tool only draws from approved information.
"I know that they’re getting credible information from the sources that we've said are the correct ones," said Kathy Sweedler, the VITA site coordinator.
For students like Bowen Huang (ACCY '26), the tool is a game-changer for efficiency.
"It significantly shortens the time that I look for answers and also gives a link to where the answer came from, so I don't have much concern with the veracity of the information," said Huang.
Scaling Support Across the Curriculum
The VITA program’s AI-backed success is not an isolated incident. Wiscount has worked with faculty across the College to develop three types of chatbots – one for assignment logistics (due dates, grading), another for course content (using MOOC transcripts and readings), and a “mash-up” of both, which she considers the flagship model.
Organizational Mastery: In BADM 509: Managing Organizations, Professors Mike Bednar and James Dahl use a chatbot that manages both course content and logistical questions about upcoming deliverables.
Managing Large-Scale Courses: For undergraduate courses with high enrollment, such as those taught by James Noonan and Tanner Warnick, chatbots eliminate the wait for online learners who are studying in different time zones. They confirm that this tool has significantly reduced the number of repetitive emails they receive.
"I have not had one professor who has been offered a customized course chatbot say they don’t want to continue with it and partner on the next iteration,” said Wiscount.