What did a typical day or week look like in your role?
A typical day in my role usually begins around 8:00-8:30 AM when I arrive at the office. I start my morning by checking emails, responding to messages on Slack, and reviewing my priorities for the day. Throughout my co-op term, I have worked on a variety of projects within the Sales and Marketing team within my Fleet department, with my largest project being the development of an AI agent to automate vehicle comparison reports.
When I first started my co-op, I was assigned the task of finding a way to make the vehicle comparison process more efficient, as it was previously very manual and time-consuming. I used my company’s AI platform, Glean, to develop an AI agent that automates this process, improving efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility for my team. This became the main focus of my co-op term, and I spent approximately 6–7 months developing, testing, and improving the agent. While I worked mostly independently, I collaborated with my company’s AI department for support and guidance. I provided monthly updates to my team to answer their questions and concerns.
To help my team adopt this new tool, I created an instruction manual explaining how the agent works, where information comes from, how calculations are made, and how to troubleshoot issues. I also conducted training sessions with my team, providing live demonstrations and answering questions.
Additionally, I hold weekly office hours every Friday where team members can provide feedback and ask questions. Although I continue to make improvements, the agent is currently complete and actively used by my team, making it one of my biggest accomplishments during my co-op term.
Beyond the AI agent project, I have supported various Sales and Marketing initiatives. I created presentations and vehicle comparison materials to promote vehicles and informed my team about competitor products. I worked on Power BI reports and dashboards and assisted with urgent projects that require quick turnaround. I also attended regular team meetings, typically attending 2–3 meetings per day. Outside of that, I support marketing activities such as preparing merchandise, sourcing image and video assets for advertisements, attending events like the EV and Charging Expo, participating in dealership marketing shoots, and visiting dealerships across Ontario with my team.
Which skills do you feel you developed through your experience in this co-op work term?
Definitely making an AI agent and becoming familiar with technology and coding. Creating the AI agent opened my eyes to the variety of AI tools that were available, how automation works and how that gets integrated into the business. This experience helped me research better, troubleshoot, and look for solutions myself, especially when many people in my department weren’t as familiar with AI, so I often had to look for solutions on my own.
I also think I developed my presentation skills. I am naturally a more introverted type of person, so presenting, to someone like me, seems daunting and nerve-wracking to go up in front of a crowd and start talking. But through practicing presenting my monthly updates on the AI agent, I have improved my presentation skills much more than how it was before starting my co-op. I also tried to analyze how my co-workers presented to mimic their behaviors, tone, and manner of speaking to adapt to my own style of presenting to make it something that would work for me.
Lastly, I developed adaptability and confidence in stepping outside my comfort zone. Although relocating to Oshawa and attending various events, dealership visits, and company activities was initially uncomfortable for me, I challenged myself to try new experiences and interact with different teams and environments. This helped me become more comfortable adapting to new situations and building professional relationships.
How did this co-op work term shape your career planning? What is your career/field of interest? How did this role help support your career goals?
Entering into this co-op, I was unsure of what specifically I wanted to do for my career path. But this co-op term has helped me become more sure of my interest and what specific field I want to go into. Talking to various co-workers and listening to their career journeys gave me ideas for my career path and think of different paths for how my career can go instead of being close minded and having a rigid mindset of only going down one direction or career path. While working at General Motors has made me interested in some aspects of cars but I realized I was more passionate about the environment and working at the intersection of international relations, environment, business, and technology. This role helped me become more certain of my career goals and what I wanted to pursue after this co-op. While I remain open to opportunities in the automotive industry, I also gained confidence in trying to pursue a career that aligns with my passion.
What would you tell other students considering a co-op or internship work experience?
I would say definitely plan ahead in your first year if you want to pursue a co-op or internship program. I think having work experience exposes you to experiences you might not be able to easily gain in an academic environment at university and through those work experiences, it can open your eyes to different career paths and goals that you might not have thought about before. It can also help you learn about yourself and understand what you want to pursue and are passionate about, as well as the type of workspace you enjoy working in, the type of people you thrive with, the work mode that you think works best for you, and more. There will be a lot of experiences that you find uncomfortable, but those uncomfortable experiences will be the ones you find the most beneficial to you in the long term when you look back on the work term months after.
Careers & Experiential Education