Connect.AI, the University of Connecticut’s new class teaching students how to use artificial intelligence in small business settings, is in full swing for its first semester and is currently accepting applications for the spring 2027 cohort.
Connect.AI is a three-credit management and entrepreneurship course dedicated to teaching students how to integrate AI into the daily workflow of businesses. Soham Shah, a third-semester accounting major and member of the class, said the program teaches students how to use AI to their advantage.
“For students, it’s to allow us to understand AI beyond the superficial,” Shah said. “So understanding for example, what context is in Claude and how to use Claude Code to build applications.”
The class is run by Eliyahu Cohen, a sixth-semester financial technology major. Cohen spends the class teaching his fellow students about specific parts of AI and how it can work for both personal and business use. In some classes, they bring in professionals or clients to share their work.
Members of the roughly 19-person class have also applied the concepts they are learning outside the classroom. One client, Shah said, was a gold-trader who was using paper to log every single item in his shop. Connect.AI is helping him automate this process.
To do this, different teams in the class “came up with different pitches and the best pitch was going to be the one that ended up getting built,” Shah said. This is how the class runs most of their projects so far, he said.
He said with Cohen as an instructor, the class feels less like a typical professor-taught class and more like a collaborative group environment.
Shah said the class is a good opportunity for people to better understand AI — both how to use it and how it actually works.
“I think the more you understand anything the less scared of it you’ll be,” he said. “All AI actually means is you just need to use your English skills or your language skills to prompt it in a certain way to get a certain output. That’s all you’re doing at the end of the day.”
Connect.AI is an application-based program. Applications for the spring semester opened on Sept. 3 and closes Oct. 7. Shah said those interested can fill out the application form, which asks why students are interested in Connect.AI and what they have built or want to build using AI. The next step in the process is an interview and coffee chats so the class leadership and the applicants can get to know one another.
Shah said the program, which is primarily made up of business majors now, is open to all majors and years. Students don’t need to have experience in AI either — just a willingness to learn, Shah said.
Connect.AI is holding an information session on Sept. 24 from 5 to 6 p.m. in room 226 of the School of Business on the Storrs campus for any interested students.