ISE students worked with AI startup Aurite to create projects like a travel agent (Image/Pixabay)
Artificial intelligence tools are a rapidly evolving with fascinating, seemingly limitless potential. In partnership with AI startup Aurite, a group of 12 USC Viterbi master’s students spent their summers innovating on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence.
These students — all part of the analytics master’s program at the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) — were approached by Bruce Wilcox, a USC Viterbi senior lecturer at ISE, for the unique opportunity to develop AI tools using Aurite’s internal systems. Over a 2-month period, the USC Viterbi created AI systems.
Some of the students drew on personal experience in choosing AI projects to develop.
“Honestly, because we are job seekers ourselves, we really know how hard the job market is nowadays,” said Tinghuan Li, a second-year master’s analytics student.
Her team created a job search AI tool, formally known as an AI “agent,” which focuses on assisting with email-based networking. She said this tedious and time-consuming part of the job application process could be greatly improved and made more efficient with this tool.
“We saw there should be a tool that makes this whole process faster and easier and more effective. So, we built this,” Li said.
Added Yihe Lu, a second-year master’s analytics student: “Our AI agent is mainly focused on generating a personalized, detailed email. That means that email will not only include your personal experience based on your resume, but it also will tailor the email based on the job description you are applying for.”
The AI assistant, named “Mail2Hire,” has already tested well with developers’ friends.
“I presented it to quite a few friends, and all my friends were saying it would be pretty good to have this kind of tool,” said Zhuoyang Li, a recently graduated master’s analytics student. “It really encouraged us to publish the application, because if it is helpful for my friends, it’s going to be helpful for all the people that are seeking a job.”
Another team of USC Viterbi students focused on developing an AI agent to assist with travel planning, another time-consuming and tedious task.
The AI travel agent is built to adjust its travel itineraries to the preference of the users, helping indecisive but eager travelers find a trip that excites them.
“I spend a lot of time on making plans,” said Yundi Xu, a first-year master’s analytics student. “I think it’s very time consuming, and I think it [would] be much easier for me to have something like an agent to help me make decisions faster.”
“Using our agent can give some recommendations about other cities that aren’t that popular, but also worth traveling to,” said Yujia Liu, a second-year master’s analytics student.
The travel agent specializes in offering specialized recommendations for destinations and creating itineraries. The agent is like a personalized travelogue for anyone looking for a unique travel experience. Just like the job search tool, the travel assistant tested very well with the students’ friends.
Aurite is a Palo Alto-based startup and just over two years old. It employs six full-time employees, including Paul Wilcox, Professor Bruce Wilcox’s brother and Aurite’s vice president of engineering.
“We are focused on helping companies transform their businesses with AI technology,” Wilcox said over email. “We are currently engaging with customers with our Aurite AI transformation platform to help them successfully integrate AI into their businesses.”
In conversations with his USC Viterbi-based brother, Paul Wilcox realized this collaboration would be a win-win: a chance for real-world users to test Aurite’s technology, and a chance for students to gain new experience in artificial intelligence work. Throughout the process of developing these tools, the USC Viterbi students worked closely with the Aurite team and experienced a crash course in AI development.
“We had many discussions with the Aurite team,” Tinghuan Li said. “They gave us so much valuable feedback on feature design, technical support, and always patiently answered all our questions. We are really grateful.”
The Aurite team, in turn, became huge fans of the USC Viterbi students and their work.
“The USC Viterbi students exceeded our expectations in many ways. The students quickly came up to speed with AI technology and practices and were able to design and build their own AI agent applications using the Aurite AI framework,” Wilcox said. “The students’ projects were reviewed by our board members and several key business partners, and all were impressed with the students’ work.”
It’s an education that the master’s students are grateful for.
“We want to say thank you to our professor, Bruce [Wilcox], and also to the Aurite team,” Li said. “We really appreciate this kind of chance for us to learn more about AI agents, and we believe it’s going to be helpful for us and for everyone.”
Published on October 9th, 2025
Last updated on October 9th, 2025
