Admissions Agent: Cintana Education
The Arizona State University Artificial Intelligence Cloud Innovation Center, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), collaborated with Cintana Education to design a multilingual, student-facing AI agent that reimagines how global learners explore and apply to higher education programs. The agent provides personalized, culturally responsive guidance from first inquiry to enrollment, helping students navigate eligibility, program details and admissions requirements across diverse languages and regions.
Built on AWS’s scalable, serverless infrastructure, this solution prototype simplifies the admissions journey for Cintana’s partner universities and prospective students, enabling higher engagement, faster response times, and more informed decision-making.
Problem
Cintana Education partners with 30+ ambitious universities around the world to connect them with resources, expertise and best practices from Arizona State University (ASU). While this network enables students to access dual-degree opportunities and high-quality academic content, the admissions process often varies across geographies and languages, making it complex for prospective students to find accurate information, apply efficiently, and get connected with an admissions representative.
Cintana needed a solution that could deliver consistent, multilingual admissions support to prospective students. The organization also sought to improve conversion rates and streamline the admissions journey from initial inquiry through application approval.
Student Spotlight
The AI CIC is powered by ASU student workers. The following students collaborated with AWS mentors to design and develop this solution:
Role: Cloud Developer | Connect with Loveneet on LinkedIn
Experience: My role in the project was to develop the backend infrastructure under the guidance of our team and integrate it with the frontend to deliver a complete solution. We built this system to provide prospective students with accurate, relevant information about the university directly through the portal—ensuring they have the support they need when making one of life’s most important decisions. A key aspect of our approach was designing an extensible architecture that allows new tools to be seamlessly added to the AI system. This forward-thinking design ensures the platform can evolve to serve students even better in the future. Learning to architect a system with scalability and extensibility in mind was particularly valuable. This project was an invaluable learning experience. I gained hands-on expertise in creating AI agents with real-world impact, while also exploring new technologies including WhatsApp notification systems and Salesforce CRM integration for identifying students who would benefit from follow-up contact on time.
Role: Frontend Developer | Connect with Aproov on LinkedIn
Experience: As the frontend developer, I was responsible for bringing the chatbot design to life and making it feel smooth, responsive, and easy to use. I built key parts of the interface such as the prompt input, chat container, scrolling controls, loading animations, and markdown-based response display. I also developed the tool card system that shows multi-step AI processes and made sure sources appear only when available to keep the layout clean. Implementing ShadCN components was a unique experience—it pushed me to balance design precision with technical depth, creating a consistent and modern interface that felt natural to interact with. Working closely with the design and backend teams helped me connect visuals, logic, and user experience into one seamless system.
Role: UI/UX Designer | Connect with Shristi on LinkedIn
Experience: My role in this project was to design the moment where interest becomes action. Instead of waiting for an email, students meet our admissions agent, Nemo, the instant they submit “Contact Us.” They get clear answers and can book an advisor appointment promptly, with WhatsApp confirmations closing the quiet gap between curiosity and reply. I translated pain points into design requirements: immediate response, guided eligibility, transparent status, and a warm, conversational voice. In Figma, I defined structure, states, accessible patterns, and micro-interactions, and used reusable content blocks to keep answers consistent across programs. As an international student, I have felt that wait and uncertainty myself; designing a solution so others don’t have to was deeply meaningful. At its core, this design helps students feel heard sooner, because being heard is where progress starts.
Approach
The ASU CIC team collaborated with Cintana Education to create a multilingual AI admissions agent that provides personalized, step-by-step support throughout the student application process. Designed for accessibility and scalability, the chatbot guides users through program discovery, application requirements, visa preparation, and follow-up communication—offering localized experiences for each region within Cintana’s partner network.
The system design incorporates several key AWS services to support automation and integration. The solution blueprint includes Amazon Bedrock for large language model implementation, AWS Lambda and API Gateway for orchestrating backend workflows, Amazon DynamoDB for managing student interaction data, Amazon Translate for multilingual engagement and AWS Amplify for hosting and deployment.
The AI agent was developed with a mobile-first design, emphasizing empathy, cultural awareness and transparency. It is structured to integrate future messaging platform support, such as WhatsApp, enabling students to access guidance in their preferred language and medium.
Industry Impact
This project demonstrates how AI and cloud technologies can transform the global admissions process by providing multilingual, real-time support to prospective students. The Cintana AI Admissions Agent bridges communication gaps between universities and international applicants, ensuring that information is accurate, accessible and consistent across regions.
By automating routine inquiries and guiding students through each step of the process, Cintana can streamline administrative workloads, increase application conversion rates and deliver a more engaging, student-centered admissions experience.
“What stood out most in working with the Cloud Innovation Center was their commitment to co-creation. We weren’t just building technology; we were rethinking the admissions experience from the ground up. The process pushed our teams—and our student developers—to apply AI in ways that make access to higher education more seamless, personalized, and equitable. The solution we developed reflects that shared vision.”
Emiliano Diez, CTO, Cintana Education
Wider Application
The Cintana AI Admissions Agent sets a new precedent for how international education networks can leverage artificial intelligence to improve the student experience. Beyond Cintana’s global partner institutions, similar frameworks could be deployed by universities, scholarship programs, and study-abroad organizations to expand access to global education pathways.
Government education boards and higher education consortia could use this technology to manage multilingual outreach campaigns, provide personalized academic advising and coordinate student mobility programs. By combining automation with culturally aware design, this approach has the potential to democratize access to information and make international higher education more inclusive, efficient, and scalable.
Next Steps
The next phase will focus on testing, measurement, and iteration. They will deploy the solution at some of their select partner institutions, assess its impact on student experience and efficiency, and use those insights to guide future development. Through this process, they’ve learned the importance of aligning technical innovation with educational outcomes — ensuring every solution they create truly serves students and institutions.
About the ASU CIC
The ASU Artificial Intelligence Cloud Innovation Center (AI CIC), powered by AWS is a no-cost design thinking and rapid prototyping shop dedicated to bridging the digital divide and driving innovation in the nonprofit, healthcare, education, and government sectors.
Our expert team harnesses Amazon’s pioneering approach to dive deep into high-priority pain points, meticulously define challenges, and craft strategic solutions. We collaborate with AWS solutions architects and talented student workers to develop tailored prototypes showcasing how advanced technology can tackle a wide range of operational and mission-related challenges.
Discover how we use technology to drive innovation. Visit our website at ASU AI CIC or contact us directly at [email protected].
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