From Paper to AI: How Academic Advising Has Changed—and What is Next for Teams Nationwide

By Alan Beaudrie, Nationally recognized academic advisor with 25+ years in higher education. Former advisor at Arizona State University and University of Arizona, and strategic product advisor at Advisor AI.

Academic advising has never had more technology, and it has never had less time for actual advising.

When I was a college student in the early 1990s at Mayville State University, advising was simple. You met one-on-one with a faculty advisor. They pulled out the university catalog, reviewed degree requirements, and wrote your academic plan by hand on paper.

That piece of paper mattered. Not only because if I lost it, I would not know what classes to take, but because it came from someone I knew and trusted.

More than three decades later, academic advising looks very different. Some changes were necessary, while others were well-intentioned but produced unintended consequences. Understanding how we arrived here is essential if we want to shape what comes next.

Phase One: Paper-Based Planning and Faculty Advising (Early 1990s)

In the first phase of advising that I experienced, there was no technology involved. Advising was entirely relational and paper-based. Faculty advisors knew their disciplines well and guided students using printed catalogs and handwritten degree plans.

There were limitations, of course. Records were difficult to share, consistency varied, and scaling was nearly impossible. But the advising experience itself was focused and personal. The advisor’s role was clear: to help the student understand their academic path.

Flashback: "I made an advising appointment by writing my name on a weekly schedule taped to my advisor’s office door. We met once a semester for about 30 minutes. Email did not exist. I never thought to contact my advisor outside that meeting unless it was absolutely necessary."

Advising was not constant, but it was intentional.

Phase Two: Professional Advisors and Early Tech (Late 1990s to 2000s)

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, academic advising began to emerge as a profession of its own. I became a professional advisor during this period, when the role was still relatively new.

Technology entered advising cautiously. Early systems were basic and often cumbersome. Advisors needed to know which screen numbers to access, which short codes to enter, and how to manually assemble course histories, substitutions, and graduation checks.

Institutions invested heavily in these systems with the promise of improving advising. In some ways, they did. Notes could be shared, records were more accessible, and compliance improved. Yet the advising conversation itself remained largely unchanged. Advisors still spent most of their time helping students think through choices and stay on track.

Flashback: "When I began advising, scheduling an appointment meant exchanging multiple emails before settling on a time. Eventually, we adopted online scheduling. Even then, I still built student plans on paper, and all notes and documents lived in physical folders inside filing cabinets."

Technology supported advising, but it had not yet overtaken it.

Phase Three: Role Accumulation and Tech Burden (Mid-2000s to Present)

From the mid-2000s to today, advising entered a third phase, one defined by role accumulation and growing tech burden.

Over time, advisors were asked to do more. They managed larger caseloads, supported retention initiatives, responded to early alerts, documented interactions, generated reports, and navigated increasingly complex systems. Each new responsibility came with new tools, workflows, and expectations.

Technology use increased dramatically, but not always in ways that improved the student experience. Advisors now spend large portions of their day entering notes, managing data, responding to automated tasks, and switching between systems.

The result is a paradox. There is more technology than ever, but less time for meaningful advising conversations. There is less relational work and less space to help students think critically about their academic and career goals.

Flashback: "Later, as an advising director, I worked with colleagues to understand how advisors were actually spending their time. We estimated that advisors devoted roughly 20 to 25 hours per week to student appointments, another 10 to 15 hours responding to emails and navigating systems, and about five additional hours on meetings, training, and other responsibilities."

With workloads already stretched thin, the idea of adopting new technology often inspired dread rather than excitement. It usually meant yet another layer of complexity added to an already full plate.

Phase Four: Simplicity and Excellence (2026 and Beyond)

We now have an opportunity to enter a fourth phase, one that learns from what has worked well in the past and avoids repeating what has not.

With the proper use of AI, advising can come almost full circle.

Administrative tasks, data synthesis, documentation, and routine planning can be handled by intelligent systems designed to reduce friction rather than create it. Imagine advisors walking into appointments with degree requirements already synthesized, recent advising notes summarized, and suitable next steps prepared in advance, all without hours of manual work.

That creates space. Space for advisors to do what they do best. They can build relationships, ask meaningful questions, coach students through decisions, and help them align their education with their long-term goals.

In this phase, what I call Simplicity and Excellence, technology works quietly in the background. Advisors are no longer burdened by systems. They are supported by them.

Flashforward: "After more than 25 years in advising, I know that no advisor can gather knowledge or interpret data at the scale AI now makes possible. However, advisors should not fear that AI will replace them. Research from Burning Glass shows that AI reshapes work within jobs rather than eliminating them."

Advising will experience that same blend of automation and augmentation. Routine tasks will fade into the background. Judgment, coaching, and relational work will become even more central. To paraphrase one conclusion from the Burning Glass research, AI is not eliminating academic advisors. It is transforming what advisors do each day.

The real question is not whether AI will change academic advising. It already is.

The question is whether we will use it to add yet another layer of complexity, or finally give advisors back the time, support, and focus they have always needed to do their best work.