Contract Open

AI and Neuroscience-Powered Chatbot to Provide Students Individualized Guidance that Complements the Support they Receive from School Counselors

NCER

Program: Small Business Innovation Research

Award amount: $1,000,000

Project director: Izzat Jarudi

Awardee:

Edifii, Inc

Year: 2025

Award period: 2 years (09/12/2025 - 09/11/2027)

Project type:

Phase II Development

Contract number: 91990025C0103

Purpose

The counseling infrastructure in American high schools is in crisis. With their average caseloads exceeding 350, it is practically impossible for school counselors to provide personalized guidance to every student. The lack of such guidance results in student disengagement and poor outcomes across many metrics. To address this critical need, this project is developing a digital system that can work synergistically with human counselors to significantly enhance the personalization and effectiveness of guidance for students, beginning in middle school and progressing through high school.

Project Activities

The project's personalized counseling assistance tool, delivered as a mobile/web app, empowers both students and counselors. An engaging 'Discovery' process working in tandem with classical and generative AI systems provides students individualized, hyperlocal 'Path Charting' via a chatbot interface. Counselors then access real-time information and resources to support students on mental wellness and college and career readiness. Our pilot results as part of Phase IA demonstrated that the capabilities enabled by the Edifii system–namely articulation of self and granular action plans–propel students towards career and college goals, increase effectiveness of student-counselor interactions, and provide systemic insights to school leadership. Planned work during Phase II will expand system deployment to middle school, scale up the sample to enable a randomized study with 250 8th to 12th graders and 4 school counselors, and further enhance Edifii's Path Charting to maximize personalization and comprehensiveness of the guidance provided.