San Jose State Students Tackle Academic Shortcomings With AI

San Jose Spotlight

January 3, 2025

When a team of San Jose State University business students recognized the path toward academic counseling and course curriculum was complicated and messy, they turned to AI for a solution.

Gabriel Castaneda, co-founder of CollegeBot.AI, said the students launched the artificial intelligence platform as a startup company to help students navigate through their class requirements and address long wait times for face-to-face appointments with university advisors. The five students, who beat out 35 other teams at the 2024 Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge event held at SJSU on Dec. 3, attracted not just students but venture capitalists and angel investors.

“At first it was just to allow students easy access to information from the school’s website because it’s really bloated with all these different resources and drop down menus. It’s difficult to find stuff,” Castaneda, an operations and supply chain management major, told San José Spotlight. “An AI interface retrieves all that information using natural language, so students can ask it like they’re talking to another person.”

Castaneda, who graduates in 2026, said they began building the platform over the summer and watched it rise in popularity as fall 2024 classes began. The company has about 20,000 students using the site, with hopes that more will find the app through marketing and word-of-mouth, Castaneda added.

“We figured, AI is changing all of technology, right? The school is not going to catch up to it quickly enough so why don’t we do something about it,” he told San José Spotlight.

CollegeBot.AI, similar to other popular AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s recently-developed Gemini, can answer questions regarding academic advising, class syllabuses and more for SJSU colleges students.

Business entrepreneurship major Nicolaus Hilleary, who graduates this year, said they received more than $500,000 in funding from venture capitalists and angel investors. He said they were able to connect with venture capital firms through team member Kai Zhao, a mathematics major.

Hilleary said Zhao had connections to some venture firms in California with Chinese backgrounds.

“We were able to meet with a lot of either venture firms or angel investors and pitched them our idea,” Hilleary told San José Spotlight. “Obviously you get rejected from some people, right? You have to knock on 100 doors before one opens for you, so it’s definitely been a long process this semester.”

Leo Wang, founder of PreAngel Fund, said he chose to invest in the company because it gives students academic resources at a speed comparable to those offered at private universities.

“Maybe you have simple questions that the AI bot can answer without having to go talk with an (advisor) directly,” he told San José Spotlight. “To avoid those small talks and greetings, AI is much more efficient.”

CollegeBot.AI wasn’t the only artificial intelligence-powered innovation to win an award at the 2024 Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge, as three out of five winning teams featured AI-based innovations.

Anuradha Basu, an SJSU business professor and organizer of the Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge, said CollegeBot.AI has strong potential — especially with the growing demand for accessible academic resources.

“AI is the disruptive and transformative technology of the moment, and it is going to affect every single industry and every single business. So, it’s not surprising that young SJSU entrepreneurs want to build businesses using AI,” she told San José Spotlight.

The company’s long-term goal is securing a contract with SJSU and expand to campuses nationwide.

Accounting major Glerys Gonzalez said she met “the boys” in September and asked to join the team because she wanted to grow the company. Starting as a marketing intern, Gonzalez is now employed as the CollegeBot.AI digital marketer.

“This isn’t just a project, we’re an established company,” she told San José Spotlight.

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