ConnectEd Just Got Much More Powerful — June 2026 Update
What we've been building just got much more powerful.
ConnectEd — the AI tool that helps students find research mentors and send personalized cold emails — just shipped four updates that make it meaningfully better.
Google OAuth Login
One click to sign in or create an account. If you already have a ConnectEd account with the same email, it auto-links — no duplicate accounts, no confusion. We ran a full database migration to support this cleanly, adding Google identity fields and making password-based auth optional for OAuth users.
Verified Professor Emails
This one matters the most. The AI used to guess email addresses based on what it thought it saw on a directory page. Sometimes it was right. Often it wasn't.
Now ConnectEd scrapes the actual university directory page to confirm the address before you send. It pulls emails from mailto links and page text, cross-references against the institution domain, and filters out generic addresses like info@ or admin@. If the scrape finds an email, it's marked as verified. If not, it falls back to the ORCID academic database.
No more bounces. No more guessing.
Send via Gmail
The generated email sends directly from your Google account, in one click, with your real address. No copy-paste, no tab-switching. It just works.
When you connect your Google account, ConnectEd stores a secure refresh token that lets it send on your behalf through the Gmail API. You review the email, click Send, and it goes out from your actual Gmail address. The professor sees your real name and can reply directly to you.
Structured Email Output
Gemini now returns a dedicated subject line and email body every time — not a text blob. Subject lines are specific to each professor's research, because generic ones like "Research Opportunity" get ignored.
The dashboard displays the subject and body separately, and the copy-to-clipboard button includes both. If you're sending via Gmail, the subject line is automatically set.
Why We Built This
We built ConnectEd because we lived this problem — cold emailing professors and professionals as high school students with no connections and no playbook. Every one of these updates closes a gap between "the email almost sent" and "the email actually landed."
If you're a student trying to break into research, find a mentor, or land an internship through cold outreach — try it free.
Feedback always welcome. We read everything — reach out at support@useconnected.com.