There was a time when the most advanced "AI support" available to international students was a stubborn autocorrect that insisted their names were misspelled and their grammar needed fixing, often incorrectly. Today, we find ourselves in a rather different moment, where generative AI can draft essays, translate nuance across languages, and even attempt to offer emotional reassurance at 2 a.m. before a deadline, with varying degrees of confidence and accuracy. You and I can agree that the international student experience has shifted from negotiating cafeteria menus and idioms to negotiating algorithms and prompts. And yet, beneath this technological evolution is a familiar question that I keep returning to: what does it actually mean to feel well, supported, and understood in a place that is not originally your own?

As I reflect on the experiences of international students, I am reminded that their journeys have always been layered with academic expectations, linguistic adaptation, cultural dissonance, and the quiet emotional labor of belonging. You may have encountered these realities in your own work or perhaps even in your own life. These challenges are not new, but they have become more complex in a world shaped by geopolitical uncertainty, post pandemic realities, and rapidly evolving educational systems. What I find especially compelling in this volume, Generative AI for Supporting International Student Well-Being in Higher Education, is how it invites us to see well-being not as a fixed outcome but as something deeply subjective and shaped by context. It encourages us to think about how institutions, environments, and everyday interactions all play a role in how students experience their journeys.

When I think about generative AI entering this space, I find myself both intrigued and cautious, and I suspect you might feel the same. On one hand, there is real promise in tools that can support learning, bridge language gaps, and provide some sense of connection during moments of isolation. On the other hand, there are questions that we cannot ignore. Who owns the data being generated and shared? Whose voices and cultures are reflected in these systems? And what happens when support begins to turn into reliance, or when a well-meaning chatbot becomes a student’s most responsive "friend" during exam season? As you read through this xv book, I encourage you to sit with these questions alongside me and resist the urge to settle for simple answers.

One of the aspects I appreciate most about this collection is how consistently it brings us back to the emotional dimensions of the international student experience. As you will see across the chapters, whether the focus is on policy, classroom practice, or lived experience, questions of emotional well-being, belonging, and coping are never far from the surface. Too often, our discussions about AI in higher education are framed around efficiency, productivity, and scale. Yet as you and I know, learning is not only a cognitive process, but also an emotional one. Feelings of belonging, anxiety, confidence, and even isolation shape how students engage, persist, and succeed. As I moved through these chapters, I found myself reflecting on how generative AI might influence these emotional experiences in ways that are both supportive and complicated. It challenges us to think more carefully about what we really mean when we say we are supporting students.

This important contribution is made possible through the editorial leadership of Aide Chen of Western University, Canada, whose vision has brought together a diverse group of scholars and perspectives. As you engage with the chapters, I believe you will notice the same thing I did. The contributors do not simplify the conversation. Instead, they engage with its tensions and contradictions. They explore questions of cultural expectations, resistance, inclusivity, and the design of emotionally responsive AI systems in ways that feel both thoughtful and necessary. This is the kind of work that pushes our thinking forward and invites us into deeper reflection.

So, as you begin reading this book, I invite you to approach it not just as a collection of chapters, but as a conversation that you and I are now part of. It has certainly challenged me to rethink what it means to support international students at this moment, and I hope it does the same for you. Generative AI may assist, translate, and even attempt to empathize, but it cannot replace our responsibility to create environments where students genuinely feel seen and valued. If anything, it makes that responsibility even more urgent. As you turn these pages, consider how we can ensure that by making our systems more intelligent, we also make them more humane.