Building the Future as an AI Strategy Intern

My journey in the UC Davis Master of Science in Business Analytics program has been extremely insightful. I came in with a pocketful of dreams and a head full of entrepreneurial ambitions. I was ready to let the tech world “wow” me and it did.

Strapped with years of experience in business, finance and risk management, I was looking forward to linking the bridges between the world of business and technology.

With a bachelor’s in business administration, a master’s in economics and three years of work experience all over the space, it was the MSBA program that helped me navigate what I enjoyed doing most: designing good user experiences, strategy, and, most importantly, developing technical fluency to do the same.

After growing through my journey in the MSBA program, I was delighted to find out about the internship program where I could finally put everything I learned into motion! This is how I found Bevalty, a startup driving beverage brand loyalty and sales with first-party data.

When I first joined Bevalty as an AI strategy intern, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I knew I’d be working with data, dashboards and KPIs, but what I didn’t expect was how much I’d come to enjoy the collaborative and constantly evolving nature of product work in a startup.

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Why Bevalty?

Bevalty stood out to me because of the intersection it sits at between brand loyalty, AI and meaningful user engagement. I was especially drawn to the chance to build tools that don’t just analyze data but actively help shape customer experience.

From my very first conversation with the team, I felt like this was a place that encouraged curiosity and ownership.

Designing Engaging Dashboards

At the heart of my internship was the engagement dashboard, a tool designed to give clients a clear view into how users are interacting with Bevalty-powered experiences. My role involved everything from auditing existing metrics to fixing KPI definitions, mapping backend outputs to frontend elements and even proposing entirely new data visualizations using Figma.

In the early weeks, I focused on exploring Bevalty’s data structure and understanding the flow of engagement across claims, badges, rewards and quests. I drafted documentation on industry-standard KPIs for loyalty programs, which I refined after discussions with the marketing team. This set the tone for a recurring loop of: propose → discuss → refine → implement. 

As the project matured, I collaborated closely with frontend engineers to ensure the dashboard design was technically feasible and clear for clients. I also worked on integrating JSON files with backend data and addressed gaps in the dashboard’s logic. Alongside this, I initiated conversations about building a customer-facing chatbot for clients.

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UC Davis MSBA Lessons and Takeaways

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is the value of bridging technical and non-technical perspectives. It’s easy to get caught up in metrics and scripts, but the real magic happens when you sit down with marketing, product, and engineering together to align on what matters to the user.

I also learned how to work through ambiguity, whether it was figuring out how to structure KPI definitions, troubleshooting JSON integration errors or understanding the shift from Google Analytics 4 to Plausible. In every case, the process was more iterative than linear, and that was a good thing.

The MSBA program also gave me the chance to test my skills outside the classroom through the Gartner Case Competition. As part of Team Case Closed, an all-female group of classmates, we developed a secure, scalable data ecosystem for the California Department of Public Health—and took first place. Pitching to state CIOs and industry leaders was nerve-wracking, but it reinforced the importance of clear communication, teamwork and creative problem-solving.

This internship at Bevalty helped me hone my product management skills by allowing me to own the end-to-end lifecycle of an internal product, the AI-powered engagement dashboard. I learned how to define clear KPIs, align them with business goals, and translate complex data into actionable insights for stakeholders.

Working cross-functionally with engineering, marketing, and data teams taught me how to balance technical feasibility with user needs, while sprint planning and stakeholder feedback sessions improved my prioritization and communication skills.

During my internship at Bevalty, I developed product intuition by identifying gaps, proposing new features like a client-facing chatbot and driving initiatives forward even in ambiguous situations.

UC Davis MSBA to Startup Impact

I’m proud of what I’ve helped build here and even more excited about the impact this dashboard will have. A good dashboard doesn’t just display data; it tells a story, gives clarity and supports better decisions. I hope this work will make that possible for Bevalty’s clients.

The MSBA program has been integral in making me a part of the Bay Area ecosystem and helping me establish connections with industry leaders such as Kit Codik, the founder of Bevalty. This would not be possible without the consistent efforts of our MSBA Academic Director Carrie Beam and the entire team.

The MSBA program also helped me develop relevant machine learning and artificial intelligence skills to work alongside tech leaders with unwavering confidence in my technical fluency with the topics.

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Bevalty Internship Lessons and Advice

If you’re planning to intern at Bevalty (or anywhere similar), here’s my advice:

• Ask questions early, even if they feel basic.
• Document your work as you go; you’ll thank yourself later.
• Be open to feedback. It’s not about being right, it’s about getting it right.
• Don’t be afraid to suggest things outside your scope. Some of my best conversations came from ideas I wasn’t supposed to be working on.

Working at Bevalty has been a genuinely rewarding experience, not just because of the work I got to do, but because of the people who encouraged me to grow every step of the way.