Exploring the Adoption of Virtual Advising Agents in Higher Education: A Multi-Campus Case Study

Virtual Advising Agents (VAAs) have recently emerged as intelligent, AI-powered tools in higher education, offering personalized advising, guidance, and support to students across campuses. Leveraging natural language processing, machine learning, and predictive analytics, VAAs promise to improve decision-making, enhance student engagement, and enable trust-based advising. This paper provides a conceptual, exploratory study of VAA implementation in a multi-campus university. It draws on a bibliometric analysis of literature and preliminary stakeholder insights from the international university to examine potential adoption of VAAs. It also highlights the likely benefits of integrating VAAs for supporting students, while also identifying barriers, including data privacy, transparency, institutional readiness, and student-faculty acceptance. To address these challenges, the paper proposes potential solutions and a phased roadmap for implementation. The outcomes of this study offer practical insights for universities considering VAAs as part of their digital advising transformation.