New partnership combines AI-native CRM and agents with robust analytics and proprietary research to turn student insights into meaningful engagement.

AUSTIN, Texas, June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Encoura, an industry-leading educational technology and research provider, and Element451, the AI-native CRM and agent engine purpose-built for higher ed, today announced a strategic partnership to create a seamless engagement ecosystem — Encoura Connect, built with Element451. Together, the two organizations are delivering what no single platform has offered higher ed before: a fully connected intelligence ecosystem where enrollment and retention combine with agentic AI to help institutions seamlessly manage and support the entire student lifecycle.

Colleges and universities across the country are under mounting pressure. Institutions are being asked to recruit and retain students with fewer staff and dwindling budgets, while the data and tools they rely on are often trapped in separate, disconnected systems. The gap between knowing what to do and being able to act on it quickly has long been a structural drag on performance. This partnership directly addresses that disconnect by bringing Encoura’s predictive models, proprietary research, and institutional insights inside Element451’s AI-powered platform.

“Having better insights and a better CRM sitting side by side would be a plus for our college and university partners, but we’ve gone even further,” said Dennis Syracuse, CEO of Encoura. “This partnership means that for the first time, the collective insights we’ve built over decades are embedded directly into Encoura Connect — and supported by AI agents — into the workflows where institutions make decisions and take action. That’s a fundamentally different kind of support.”

The partnership gives colleges and universities a connected experience where the right information is always in the right place. Institutions no longer have to move between systems to find insights and then apply them; the two now live together, eliminating the manual handoffs that have long slowed engagement operations. Encoura’s predictive models are updated automatically based on real-time student activity, and Element451’s Bolt agents proactively identify untapped strategic opportunities. At all times, the platform maintains the highest privacy and security standards, making it a trustworthy, all-in-one enrollment resource.

“Element451 was built around how higher ed professionals work every day, rather than retrofitted from a different industry’s enterprise software,” said James Novak, CEO at Element451. “Pairing that with Encoura’s depth of intelligence means our agents and workflows are informed by the best analytics in higher education and are ready to act on it.”

The result is a new enrollment and retention ecosystem that expands institutional capacity, reduces friction, and empowers enrollment and student success staff to spend less time managing systems and more time focused on building meaningful student connections that drive long-term institutional engagement.

As higher education enters one of its most competitive enrollment periods in decades, Encoura and Element451 are positioning institutions to move from insight to action faster than ever before.

To learn more about the Encoura and Element451 partnership, visit https://www.encoura.org/connect/.

Members of the media can contact Courtney Baumann at [email protected].

About Encoura

Encoura is an educational technology, marketing, and research organization serving thousands of higher education institutions across the nation. Since 1972, Encoura has been a leading provider of strategic consulting, data science, and engagement solutions that connect institutions to the communities they serve. In 2025 and 2026, Encoura expanded its capabilities with its acquisition of Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) and Anthology’s Lifecycle Engagement and Student Success portfolio. This combined expertise now spans enrollment, marketing, student success, alumni relations, and advancement, providing institutions with comprehensive solutions to achieve their goals throughout the student lifecycle. For more information, visit encoura.org.

About Element451

Element451 delivers AI products purpose-built for higher education. Bolt is the AI Agent Engine for higher education, deploying specialized agents across every stage of the student lifecycle to drive outcomes for institutions and students alike. Element is the AI-native CRM for higher education, connecting data, workflows, and AI agents across every team and every stage of the student journey. Element451 supports more than 350 institutions, including Columbia University, Louisiana State University, Tulane University, the North Carolina Community College System, and the University System of Georgia.

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