UH Hilo launches AI track for business students this fall
UH Hilo is adding an AI concentration for business majors and an open certificate this fall, aiming to keep students on island with job-ready skills.
UH Hilo is adding an artificial intelligence concentration to its bachelor of business administration program this fall, along with an AI certificate that will be open to students from every major. The move gives business students a formal path into AI without requiring a computer science background first, while widening access for Hilo students studying everything from education to the arts.
The new track sits inside the College of Business and Economics and will formally connect with UH Hilo’s data science program. Professors Sukhwa Hong and Chenbo Shi are leading the effort, designed to help students understand how AI works, where it falls short and how to use it responsibly in professional settings.
The concentration will be built around an introductory AI course, followed by updated business analytics and text mining classes that now carry more AI content, plus additional data science requirements. The program moved quickly by adapting existing offerings instead of waiting to create an entirely new curriculum from scratch. In upper-division work, students will study AI-supported analysis, prediction and decision-making, with ethics built into the coursework.
Its bachelor of science in data science started in fall 2024 and is the first data science major in the University of Hawaii System. That program already trains students in artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and data analysis, and its business track includes Intro to Business Analytics, Business Statistics, Business Analytics, Applied Business Analytics and Text Mining for Behavior and Social Sciences.
The new AI courses will be used in business, science, governance and public service.
In 2024, business students took part in a federally funded summer project that produced an AI chatbot for academic advising. The campus later launched the Lehua chatbot in June 2025; by April 2026, UH Hilo’s figures showed 93% of students had opted in and 55% had engaged, sending more than 6,000 messages.
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