When Kavitta Ghai was a student at UC Santa Barbara, she saw firsthand how students struggled to get academic support outside class hours. Office hours were limited, emails often went unanswered for days, and students were left to navigate complex coursework alone. That experience led her and co-founder Jordan Long, now CTO, to create Nectir, an AI-powered chatbot designed to provide instant academic support 24/7.
In an exclusive interview with AIM Research, Ghai reflected on the mission behind Nectir and how AI is now student engagement. “We wanted to make sure no student ever feels like they are alone in their learning journey,” she said. “Education should be a community, not a solo experience.”
The idea for Nectir was deeply personal. Ghai, who has struggled with autism and ADHD, faced significant challenges throughout her education. She recalled the frustration of watching students struggle without immediate help. During her undergraduate studies at UCSB, she had a professor in a 300+ person class implement Slack, allowing students to get real-time support from each other and the TAs. However, she was told that Slack was too expensive and complicated to implement campuswide, as it wasn't designed for large-scale academic deployment. “I remember sitting in my dorm at 2 AM, trying to finish an assignment, and thinking—why is there no one to help right now? We needed a solution that worked on students’ schedules, not just faculty availability,” she shared. That realization sparked the vision for an AI-powered assistant that would provide immediate, round-the-clock support.
