How GMAC’s AI-Powered Advancery Platform Transforms MBA Career Planning

If you’re considering an MBA and have done any research, you’ve probably realized that the entire process of identifying a suitable program and preparing your application can be overwhelming. Thankfully, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) has launched its AI-powered Advancery platform for just this kind of situation. We recently spoke to Adam Witwer, CPO of GMAC, about this game-changing platform—here’s what he had to say.

Vault: What drove GMAC to create Advancery, and how does it meet the career-growth needs of today’s MBA candidates?

Witwer: As a non-profit association of leading business schools, we at GMAC understand firsthand that for candidates, navigating the path to graduate business programs can be time-consuming and often overwhelming. Our goal of empowering candidates to gain clarity, confidence, and peace of mind during this process is what led us to create Advancery. This AI-powered tool is specifically designed to help candidates identify the skills they need to advance their career, choose the best-fit program for them, and stay on track throughout the entire application planning process.

Whether it be searching for a career change or eyeing a promotion, Advancery offers a hassle-free solution that helps candidates map out and pursue their goals. It does so by enabling them to identify the skills they need to advance their career and to choose the business program that will best fit their long-term career goals. By leveraging the data-driven recommendations, candidates have the opportunity to quickly find the most relevant educational options to upskill in pursuit of their dream jobs.

What unique features set Advancery apart from other platforms in graduate management education?

Advancery was born out of GMAC’s desire to meet the needs of candidates navigating the overwhelming array of options and making informed decisions from career guidance to application planning. Built with many unique features that all work together to help empower candidates on their business education journeys, Advancery offers AI-powered and GMAC-verified school data.

Our dataset is powered by smart tech that pulls info straight from school websites, and the GMAC team personally reviews and verifies the data to make sure it’s accurate and reliable. Our analysis leverages over 10 million posts and comments on Reddit, providing our users with insights into what real applicants, students, and alumni are saying about programs and schools.

A personalized skill assessment feature helps candidates discover what they need to develop to achieve their career goals and match with the right programs. Users can explore programs based on location, cost, modality (on-line, hybrid, in-person) and time commitment, then compare them side by side.

Advancery also offers smart and simplified application planning. Our smart planning tool transforms a to-do list into an actionable calendar to help candidates stay on track from essay to deadlines.

With a 12% rise in MBA applications signaling a focus on skill-building, how does Advancery address candidates’ evolving workforce priorities?

With interest in pursuing MBAs on the rise, and 70% of students saying their reason for completing an MBA is to acquire more skills and knowledge about the business world, Advancery addresses candidates’ evolving workplace priorities. It does so by delivering a data-driven, user-friendly platform designed to empower them to achieve their business education and career goals. Powered by AI, the application gives candidates the ability to identify the exact skills they need to advance their career, choose the program that best fits their goals, and stay on track throughout the application process.

Additionally, Advancery analyzes candidates’ interests, skills, and experiences to create personalized development plans that highlight the key competencies a candidate may need for success in their desired role or industry. Designed to fit the growing needs of candidates interested in graduate business education, Advancery will continue to evolve as we know that today’s business world won’t be the same one as tomorrow.

What challenges did GMAC face during the beta testing phase of Advancery, and how were they addressed to ensure a successful launch?

Advancery was designed to serve business education seekers as a comprehensive, one-stop resource for career decision-making, but delivering on this promise presented significant challenges during beta testing. Initially, the GMAC Advancery team faced difficulties in efficiently sourcing, gathering, and curating vast amounts of data from numerous disparate sources. Our first approach leaned too heavily on automation and large language model (LLM)-based processes, which proved slower and less effective than anticipated.

We pivoted toward more manual data collection methods, which were still slow but enabled us to learn more about the data and look for opportunities to automate. As we progressed through the beta phase and moved closer to launch, we struck an optimal balance, combining the strengths of AI-driven data gathering and normalization with an essential human verification layer. This hybrid approach allowed us to compile an exceptionally comprehensive and accurate dataset unlike anything else currently available.

How does Advancery help candidates achieve long-term career goals beyond just the application process?

With business schools offering a wide range of programs tailored to today’s workplace demands, finding the right fit for one’s career goals can be challenging. Advancery provides a holistic, personalized experience that aligns with long-term career ambitions. With Advancery, candidates are offered a personalized step-by-step skills assessment that helps them discover what they need to develop in order to stay on or pivot to their desired career trajectory. Identifying these skills early in their journey allows them the opportunity to learn and grow in the necessary areas to reach their dream job or promotion in the longer term.

With 72% of schools reporting MBA application growth, what trends do you foresee in graduate management education over the next five years, and how is Advancery equipped to respond?

According to GMAC’s 2025 Prospective Student Survey, there has been a greater emphasis on strategic thinking and problem-solving skills from candidates and employers. However, employers place a greater emphasis on human skills like emotional intelligence, adaptability and coachability. Given this information, it can be expected that prospective students continue emphasizing interest in growing their skills, as well as opportunities to work on their human skills through projects or team work. To meet this growing emphasis on skills, Advancery is equipped to put candidates in the driver's seat on their business education journey, allowing them to identify the skills that will best benefit their personal career goals.

To be ready for the business education of tomorrow, GMAC is committed to continuously evolving to meet the needs of candidates, with new resources to better serve them. GMAC specializes in connecting future business leaders around the world with educational opportunities, providing expert guidance throughout their entire career. The tool will continue to evolve to meet candidates' needs as we know that today’s business world won’t be the same one as tomorrow.

Can you share an example of how Advancery has already impacted a candidate’s journey during its beta phase?

April Z., an early adopter of Advancery in its usability testing stage, shared her thoughts of the tool in this way: “What feels valuable to me is that this can be really personalized in a way that I haven’t seen in other school systems. Other assessments give you programs of interest, but they stop there. This is really high value in terms of my ability to create something that I will come back to and use over and over again.” We were very encouraged by her testimonial because we believe that Advancery could impact many candidates like her by gaining confidence and feeling empowered to take the next step on their business education journey.

How will GMAC evaluate Advancery’s success in helping candidates reach their educational and professional goals?

We set out to foster long-term relationships with Advancery users when we launched the product earlier this year because we believe that in today’s ever-changing business environment, career professionals are seeking life-long learning opportunities to continuously upskill and reskill to stand out no matter whether it’s for a current employer or to switch job functions or even industries. Our hope, through Advancery, is to shape experiences and interactions with business- and career-minded candidates wherever they are in their journey. There are many products that can help them satisfy a momentary need, but GMAC’s primary goal, through Advancery, is to provide long-lasting value and support users throughout their business career. That is how we will consider success as it is consistent with our mission to provide the tools and information necessary for schools and talent to discover and evaluate each other.

How does technology enable Advancery to personalize the candidate experience, and are there plans to incorporate AI or other emerging tech?

Advancery is unique in its offering because of how it leverages AI throughout its platform. It starts with GMAC-verified school data, aggregated and validated by AI. It also provides AI-enhanced insights using our proprietary multi-agent AI workflow to analyze 10M+ Reddit discussions, surfacing positive differentiators across nine key themes that real applicants, students and alumni talk about. Another key technological feature is the smart skills matching, taking our AI-powered skills assessment to discover what candidates need to advance their career and find programs that fit their strengths. Lastly, Advancery’s smart planning tool transforms a candidate’s to-do list into an actionable calendar to stay on track of their next application steps. We’re building even more ways to support a candidate’s journey, including coaching and other tools to explore branching career paths, and will continue to look for ways to utilize advanced technology to improve the platform.

For Vault’s readers considering an MBA, what advice would you offer about leveraging platforms like Advancery to navigate their career paths effectively?

Navigating the path to graduate business programs can be time-consuming and overwhelming. For those considering an MBA, leveraging a tool like Advancery will not only make your journey more efficient, but it will also help you to identify and create a plan to reach your ultimate career goals. We recommend your readers take full advantage of all the tools it has to offer from the ability to identify what skills they will need, whether they are seeking a career change or promotion, to using data directly from schools to compare and analyze which program will best meet their needs. The recommendations might be unexpected to them as a wide range of programs, degreed and non-degree, besides MBA are included in our database. They might be pleasantly surprised to find more economical or efficient ways to reach their career goals. No matter how, Advancery is there to help maximize their educational and career outcomes in this journey so they don’t have to go alone.

Adam Witwer has dedicated his career to creating products that help people learn and level up. He currently serves as the Chief Product Officer at the Graduate Management Admissions Council.

Rob Porter is an editor at Vault.