Most people in higher ed hear “AI in admissions” and think: “Ah, so… another chatbot.”

In this episode of The VineDown, I sit down with CollegeVine’s own CTO, Chris Coffey, to pull back the curtain on what we’re actually building: autonomous AI agents that act more like teammates than tools with guardrails, reasoning, and real responsibility.

We get into:

• How our first AI recruiter (“Sarah”) went from a wild experiment to an at-scale product engaging millions of students

• Why deploying AI in admissions is orders of magnitude harder than most people think

• What it really means to keep agents “safe” and why guardrails, tools, and moderation matter so much in higher ed

• How agents can triage student tasks (registering for classes, FAFSA, clubs, advising) and prioritize what’s urgent vs. what can wait

• Why Chris says “there’s nobody building agents the way we are building them right now”

• What CIOs get wrong about trying to build their own AI solutions

• And the agent Little Chris wishes he had in college (spoiler: it’s about unknown unknowns, not homework)

If you’ve ever wanted a clear, honest explanation of how AI agents actually work in a high-stakes environment like education (and what’s coming next) this one’s for you.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 – Cold open with Chris

02:05 – Meet Chris Coffey, CollegeVine CTO

03:00 – From AI recruiter “Sarah” to an agent platform

04:25 – Why deploying AI at scale is so damn hard

06:10 – Models leveled up. Our architecture had to, too.

08:00 – What “safe” actually means in an AI agent

11:45 – Agents, tools, and responsibilities (AI as a teammate)

14:30 – Long-running relationships: agents that support students for a year+

18:15 – How agents decide what’s urgent vs. what can wait

20:30 – Guardrails + reporting = less fear, more trust

21:55 – Inside Chris’s engineering philosophy

23:40 – Non-determinism: why agents are different from normal software

25:30 – A message to CIOs who want to “just build it themselves”

29:25 – The agent Little Chris wishes he had in college

31:30 – Unknown unknowns and the real value of student-facing agents

33:25 – Looking ahead: where agents and higher ed go next

33:55 – Emily’s closing + why this conversation matters

Listen to this special full episode of The VineDown wherever you get your podcasts!