Enhancing Academic Advising in Saudi Universities Using Generative Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Academic advising in Saudi universities has become a growing burden with the influx of students in response to Vision 2030, which aims to transform the economy toward a knowledge-based economy. This paper has investigated the possibility of generative artificial intelligence to fill long-standing gaps in advising access, timeliness, and the quality of guidance in a Saudi university setting. A structured questionnaire was ad-ministered to 220 respondents selected from various colleges. The analysis of data was carried out using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20, employing reliability testing, descriptive statistics, and inferential analysis. Results indicate moderate satisfaction with current advising but significant deficits in timeliness and the clarity of guidance, especially at registration times when student demand on advisors is greatest. The participants are very familiar with generative AI tools but have seldom used them in a formal advising setting, implying that there is an institutional awareness gap rather than an explicit resistance to the technology. The findings suggest that structured AI literacy interventions before a deployment would significantly increase adoption. The paper suggests a hybrid advising design: AI to handle routine queries and human advisors retained to work on more complex mentoring, with institutional data governance and pre-launch training in place and the system designed to be bilingual.

Keywords: academic advising; generative AI; Saudi universities; chatbot; Vision 2030; technology acceptance; higher education.

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/17-6-04

Publication date: June 30^th 2026