Though UCLA Extension instructor Antonio Pagano is listed as the sole instructor of his courses, he is not working alone. Helping him facilitate these classes is an artificial intelligence virtual teaching assistant named Claudia GPT. Pagano encourages his students to use ChatGPT, specifically his custom GPT that allows them to reach out to Claudia for help at any time. The AI offers support by narrating the lectures and offering study tips and assignment guidance.

“Claudia GPT as my teaching assistant is a way to showcase an AI tool applied in the real world and to have something engaging for my students,” Pagano said.

Like AI, Pagano’s career has been everchanging. He began as an attorney in his home country of Italy before realizing practicing law was not his passion. He pivoted to marketing and received his MBA at Boston University. While working in professional sports marketing, he knew he still was not happy, so he pursued his childhood dream of moving to California.

It was in California that Pagano’s journey with AI began. He did a deep dive into machine learning and wrote a book titled “Hi, AI! How Human Ingenuity and Artificial Intelligence Are Transforming the Marketing Universe.” With his background, Pagano found a way to intersect AI with marketing.

“AI and marketing are a natural fit because marketing generates huge amounts of data — from customer interactions to sales performance. AI can turn this data into actionable insights, helping marketers understand what’s working, what’s not and how to improve,” Pagano said.

Around the same time, UCLA Extension reached out to him and offered to create a class from scratch for him to teach. Pagano took the opportunity and now teaches AI Technologies in Marketing: Tools and Applications.

The course goes over marketing and communication tools using the AI lens, so students learn about large language models, agents, machine learning and predictive analytics, among other technologies. Students also complete a capstone project, applying these tools to real-world strategies, so they leave with practical AI skills they can use immediately. Pagano has a variety of students from different fields who are looking to better understand these tools and learn how to apply them to upgrade their marketing tactics and content strategies. In this hands-on course, Pagano hopes to share practical tools for his students to be able to incorporate into their daily lives.

“My goal is to share my knowledge and my skills but also allow my students to understand and immediately implement these tools in their personal and professional lives,” Pagano said.

Pagano believes in a two-way style of learning, in which students learn from him, and he learns from his students. Having spent many years in school while pursuing two graduate degrees, Pagano remembers his time as a student being boring, so he now works on making his courses engaging and interactive. He uses real-world case studies, hands-on activities and live demonstrations of AI tools in his classes so students can immediately see how concepts apply to their work.

Though he didn’t love his time as a student, he does enjoy teaching. He believes that AI can be a force for good and aims to teach students to use AI to augment human decision-making rather than replace it.

“AI should augment — not replace — human decision-making. My goal is not only to share knowledge but to empower students with tools they can implement immediately in their careers,” Pagano said.