SU launches Clementine AI to assist with class navigation, registration
Syracuse University launched Clementine, a new AI tool, on Wednesday to help students with class registration. Clementine will pair class offerings and course descriptions with students’ availability to help them find courses. Eli Schwartz | Asst. Photo Editor
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Ahead of class selection for the fall 2026 semester, Syracuse University launched Clementine, a new artificial intelligence tool to help students with class registration.
Clementine, announced Wednesday, is an AI assistant intended to help students navigate the university’s course offerings, according to a campus-wide email from SU’s Information Technologies Services.
Designed by SU staff, Clementine pairs class offerings and course descriptions with students’ availability to help them find courses that fit into their schedules, SU Chief Digital Officer Jeff Rubin said.
“We just choose to bring that all together into place where you don’t have to do all of that work yourself,” Rubin said.
While Clementine can help students sort through hundreds of classes, Rubin said it is not the only resource they should use when building their schedules.
“This doesn’t replace Degree Works,” Rubin said. “This doesn’t replace conversation with your advisor. What it could do is help you become a lot more informed before having that conversation with your advisor.”
Although Rubin said he finds the face-to-face conversations between students and advisors valuable, he recognizes advising staff have a finite amount of time to meet with students during busy registration periods. He hopes Clementine can help students have more productive meetings with their advisors, he said.
As this is the first version of Clementine, Rubin said it is not yet equipped to give advice on degree requirements or career paths, although his team may try to implement those features into future versions of the program.
However, he said he encourages students to ask Clementine for courses that may help them in future careers or internships.
“You can’t do that in the class search,” Rubin said. “That’s an important question that you could ask Clementine, and it’s going to do a really good job being able to answer that.”
Rubin said students have already noticed one large issue with Clementine — its speed. It can take 30 seconds to a minute to produce answers because it searches through large data sets.
“Even if it’s a little slow, the richness of the answer is worth the wait,” Rubin said.
ITS encouraged students in its Wednesday email to be specific and try different phrasings to help with their searches through Clementine.
Clementine is currently open for student use on SU’s website ahead of class selection, which begins April 8.
