How Copenhagen Business Academy Deployed AI in the Classroom – Without an Engineering Team

About Per Bergfors

Copenhagen Business Academy (Cphbusiness) is an established institution focused on applied higher education in Denmark. The Academy steadfastly continues its mission of practical business education, preparing students for real-world challenges.

Assistant Professor Per Bergfors brings extensive industry experience to his role. Having worked with global corporations such as HP, Xerox, and Canon, he has mastered the art of adapting American business strategies to European contexts. His professional background provides a deep understanding of commercial dynamics, which he leverages to enrich his lectures. Per prides himself on making complicated concepts easy to understand and relevant, ensuring his students are well-equipped for an evolving business world.

Throughout his academic career, Per has embraced a forward-thinking approach. Aware of the rapidly changing educational landscape and evolving student needs, he increasingly explores advanced technologies to elevate learning. His aim is not merely to teach but to inspire and prepare learners for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

What challenge did Per face?

Per’s first exploration of AI was sparked by curiosity and a commitment to improving his students’ experience. Work with analytical platforms such as IBM Watson had already given him a solid foundation in data analysis and job-market applications, prompting him to investigate how generative AI could transform education.

Moving from analytical AI, which produces structured outputs, to generative AI, which enables creative and interactive experiences, marked a substantial shift in his teaching. Per saw an opportunity to build a more dynamic, engaging, and personalized environment tailored to each student.

He also faced a practical obstacle: many students considered traditional methods outdated and uninspiring, leading to disengagement and a decline in reading. At the same time, Europe’s strict data-privacy rules meant any AI solution had to balance innovation with strong safeguards and remain intuitive for faculty and students without deep programming skills.

“The goal is to demonstrate and inspire the implementation of General AI, particularly focusing on the custom GPT approach, to improve the learning experience. We aim to show how these technologies can be incorporated into the study curriculum as innovative strategies and effective pedagogical tools. Importantly, the workshops emphasize the flexibility for each professor to tailor and apply their own materials and methods, ensuring relevance and effectiveness for all participants.”

How did Per solve it with CustomGPT.ai?

Per selected CustomGPT.ai because it satisfied two non-negotiable requirements: robust local data control and a no-code interface. The local model assured the Academy that student information would remain private and protected, while the visual workspace let faculty design prompts, upload reading packs, and build lesson helpers without specialised training.

Rather than overhaul the entire curriculum, Per adopted a layered rollout. In an International Marketing seminar, students used the bot to explore cultural-adaptation strategies, comparing Danish and American consumer behaviour. Later, in Business Ethics, they fed landmark governance cases into CustomGPT, which generated concise comparative tables that freed class time for debate instead of rote summarisation.

Per’s work soon expanded beyond his classroom. With colleague Just Pedersen, he hosted hands-on workshops for other professors. Each participant left with a prototype chatbot trained on their own lecture notes, proving the technology adapts to diverse teaching styles.

What results did Per achieve?

The integration of CustomGPT.ai produced clear outcomes:

• Enhanced Student Engagement: Pairing generative AI with traditional textbooks reinvigorated reading assignments. Students reported that the bot’s conversational answers made dense chapters easier to digest, and class participation climbed.
• Improved Comprehension: By prompting the bot to explain terms in plain language or illustrate concepts with fresh examples, learners developed a deeper grasp of core ideas.
• Overwhelmingly Positive Feedback: Most students supported continued AI use and encouraged its expansion into additional courses to mirror the digital tools they expect in the workplace.
• Peer-to-Peer Support: An AI-powered discussion board, built on the same backend, became one of the most visited pages on the learning platform, extending teaching presence beyond scheduled contact.

The journey also surfaced challenges:

• Addressing Skepticism: A vocal minority questioned AI reliability. Their critique sparked healthy debate on source evaluation and ethics, sharpening critical-thinking skills across the cohort.

Through these results, Per demonstrated that CustomGPT.ai can blend innovation with academic rigour, enriching education while acknowledging practical concerns and ethical considerations.

Outcome	Result
Student participation	Increased across the deployed courses
Reading engagement	Re-engaged after a prior decline
Course-prep time	Reduced
Student feedback	Overwhelmingly positive; students encouraged expansion
Discussion board	Among the most visited resources on the learning platform
Faculty adoption	High interest across departments; working prototypes in a single session
Data privacy	Maintained throughout (GDPR-aligned)
Engineering resources used	None
Time to deploy a course AI assistant	A single afternoon

Why it Worked

• Phased Roll-out: Introducing AI topic by topic let faculty and students adapt without overload.
• Privacy by Design: Local storage addressed European privacy expectations and reassured stakeholders.
• Hands-on Simplicity: The no-code interface let every instructor build a functional chatbot in one workshop afternoon.
• Faculty Empowerment: Professors retained full pedagogical control by training the bot on their own content.
• Student-Centric Focus: The tool met students’ desire for interactive, tech-forward learning experiences.
• Extended Learning Hours: The chatbot remained available around the clock, giving time-pressed learners instant guidance and reducing email backlog.
• Ethical Reflection: Student skepticism became a catalyst for valuable dialogue on AI’s limitations and responsibilities.

Conclusion

By integrating CustomGPT.ai into his teaching methodology, Per Bergfors successfully demonstrated how generative AI can modernize business education while preserving academic rigor and data privacy. The thoughtful and flexible integration strategy led to improved student engagement, comprehension, and satisfaction. At the same time, it empowered faculty members to adopt AI at their own pace and adapt it to their teaching needs, setting the foundation for a new era of personalized, engaging education.

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FAQ: AI for Higher Education and CustomGPT.ai