Bruin AI Current Events
AI in the Hands of Students: From Distraction to Direction
Good morning,
Welcome back to the current events newsletter.
This week, we will be diving into how AI tools are shaping productivity.
Thanks for tuning in this week!
📣 Announcements
💸 Economy
- Karen
AskJoe Survey 🐻
We are thrilled to announce a new project we’re working on in collaboration with AWS called AskJoe!
AskJoe is a Gen AI-powered chatbot we’re building to help answer all kinds of questions that students have at UCLA. Think of it as a go-to resource for navigating campus life, academics, and everything in between. To ensure AskJoe is as useful as possible, we need your help in understanding what features and information you’d like to see.
Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey and share your thoughts:
GenAI Summit @ UCLA 🤖
Secondly, exciting news, Bruin AI is partnering with AWS to host our first-ever Gen AI Summit this October (tentatively 10/4 or 10/5)!
We’re bringing together students, startups, and industry leaders for a day packed with:
AWS-led workshops on Bedrock, RAG chatbots, LLM agents, and more
Panels and networking with Gen AI experts
Startup showcase + Incubator, Up to 10 students will receive AWS Gen AI credits and mentorship through a post-summit incubator program
We’d love your input to help us shape a summit that aligns with your interests. Fill out the quick form below, plus we’ll use it to send you key event reminders:
How AI Tools Are Reshaping Student Productivity
As generative AI tools continue to develop rapidly, it is crucial that users learn how to reframe the way they engage with the internet by moving away from passive consumption toward active learning and productivity. According to Perplexity’s CEO, Aravind Srinivas, students and professionals should “spend less time doom-scrolling on Instagram and more time using AI.” In his opinion, the biggest competitive advantage in the job market will belong to those who understand how to use tools like large language models in everyday workflows.
This perspective is just one aspect of a greater shift in how AI tools are being perceived. Rather than acting as replacements for human labor, platforms like Perplexity aim to act as an intelligent assistant; assisting with research, coding, planning, and even decision-making. This transition offers a unique opportunity for early-career individuals and undergraduates to improve their knowledge of the digital world, making themselves valuable to future employers. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, over the next 10 to 20 years, virtually every business and government agency will use AI. This requires an evolution of skills which presents an enormous opportunity for students and entry-level workers to evolve systems within the workplace by using these tools effectively.
However, along with productivity, this shift is also about mindset. To successfully make this switch, users must go through the following steps: awareness - recognizing how much unproductive time is spent on social media, interest - discovering the possibilities of AI, desire - seeing the benefits of integration, and finally to action - learning and applying AI tools in real time tasks. With a growing ecosystem of free AI tools, which includes Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s Gemini, users can explore, experiment, and evolve without needing deep technical backgrounds.
Still, the challenge lies in habit related stagnation with how we approach learning. Many undergraduates are familiar with generative AI tools in theory but haven’t adopted them meaningfully in their academic or professional lives. As a result, the benefits of AI remain concentrated with those who educate themselves first. The advantages of this are especially seen through the growth of AI-exposed industries. According to PWC, industries more exposed to AI have 3x higher growth in revenue per employee.
Nonetheless, there are signs of growing awareness. Perplexity itself has seen a surge in user engagement, especially from students and early-stage professionals seeking alternatives to traditional search engines or websites like Reddit. Platforms that encourage more thorough user interaction, like generated LLM-driven research rather than endless scrolling, may increasingly be seen as productivity tools rather than distractions.
Long-term, this could signify a generational shift in how people view their time and skills. People, in particular, students may replace passive entertainment through doom-scrolling with AI as an extension of their creative and intellectual endeavours. Whether for job interviews, business creation, or study support, generative AI tools may soon be viewed as essential digital resources and be increasingly helpful to not only stand out in job markets, but working to redefine them.
- Mihika B
Feel free to elaborate on any of your thoughts through this Anonymous Feedback Form.
All the best,
Mihika Bhattacharjee, Editorial Intern
Karen Harrison, Newsletter Director
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"The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." - Steve Jobs