DeVry leverages Agentforce to improve learning experience – News

Agentforce is redefining what “student support” means in higher education. As universities race to make learning more flexible and responsive, DeVry University is using Salesforce Inc.’s agentic platform to bring AI-powered guidance and real-time academic help to the people who need it most — working adults balancing careers, coursework and family life.

At a time when most students are online after traditional office hours, DeVry is transforming how education operates by turning AI agents into around-the-clock academic and administrative assistants. The goal isn’t automation for efficiency’s sake, but intelligent partnership — one where adaptive systems learn from each interaction to offer timely, personalized support that keeps adult learners moving forward, no matter when or where they log in, according to Chris Campbell (pictured), chief information officer of DeVry.

“They are adult students — they need support when much of our infrastructure, our advisors, our faculty are offline,” he said. “And how do we do that? Agentforces is really helping us perform those tasks.”

Campbell spoke with theCUBE’s John Furrier and Gemma Allen at Dreamforce, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, News Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how DeVry University is charting a bold course for higher education using Salesforce’s Agentforce — one where AI enhances access, accelerates achievement and empowers every learner to thrive in a rapidly evolving digital world. (* Disclosure below.)

Building an always-on support system using Agentforce

Agentforce assists with everything from course selection and enrollment to orientation and ongoing engagement. The results speak volumes: measurable gains in student persistence and retention and significant efficiency improvements — saving more than 500 hours of advisor time annually, according to Campbell.

“We’ve been on a journey transforming our infrastructure from premise-based things to SaaS-based,” he said. “We’ve been following the cloud journey, which, interestingly, has set us up to really take advantage of this new world, where you have the Salesforces of the world that are creating these agentic capabilities that we can use, that we can rent. We don’t have to go all the way down to the servers and provide capacity.”

A major pillar of DeVry’s vision is ensuring every student becomes proficient in using AI. The university has committed to embedding applied AI literacy into every course by June.

“We are already seeing benefits that we can tie directly ROI to both persistence and retention of students, both key things for delivering value in their lives and, frankly, value to the university,” Campbell explained. “We have leveraged agents on our new DeVryPro platform, which is a continuing professional education platform that delivers stackable credentials and is AI-powered.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of News’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Dreamforce:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dreamforce. Neither Salesforce, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or News.)

Photo: News