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Today as I publish the several curated reading lists I maintain, it strikes me that we are approaching the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our universities in a piecemeal rather than a comprehensive fashion.

It seems that most universities began taking up the topic in a transactional way following the release of ChatGPT ‘s general release at the end of 2022. First, it was student use of AI, which triggered the still-lingering furor over “cheating on assignments.” Many of us came to realize early on that the “cheating” concern was less about learners’ academic integrity than it was about the pedagogy of teaching and assessment employed by the faculty. We came to understand that the advent of AI in higher education required that we accommodate the rapidly-changing realities of the present as well as the future in our methods and practices. We could not ignore the emerging technologies that are becoming the foundation of workplace tools and techniques in designing our classes. Our students recognized this before many faculty members did.

It is incumbent on all of us to fully integrate the current and emerging tools, techniques and practices that are relevant to the workplace our learners will enter as they leave the university whether it be with a baccalaureate degree or a certificate of completion in some aspect of professional and continuing education. AI is one of the essential tools. As I joined the faculty in the 1970s we did not expect learners to have personal computers for researching, composing and printing their assignments. Typewriters and ink pens were the tools of the day. The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature was a first stop in research. That, of course, was because the IBM PC which popularized the personal computer was not released until 1981; the World Wide Web was decades into the future. Now, half a century later, one would be hard pressed to find a student at a university who did not have a tablet, notebook or desktop computer with a wide array of programs to facilitate preparation of assignments. And with the proliferation of personal computing devices came access to the internet. 

Once again, we faced a challenge of the development of technology in the surrounding world that impacted our methods and practices in teaching and learning. In 1993, the first web browser, NCSA Mosaic, was released by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. It provided free and easy access for non-commercial, personal and educational access to the worldwide internet. Initially, the internet provided access to databases including images and real-time readings on a wide variety of topics such as weather, government economic and related data. Over time, the internet provided more and more interactive processes, offering transactional engagements.

While it took a couple of decades to integrate computers and the internet into the teaching and learning process, AI has been adopted at a much faster pace. Anara’s AI in higher education statistics: The complete 2025 report includes data from UK universities that 92% of UK students now use AI in some form, representing a dramatic surge from just 66% in 2024. The report also includes data that 86% of students globally use AI in their studies, including 54% who use it weekly and 25% who use it daily. 

Students’ use of AI for classes is just one part of the overall integration of colleges and universities into the Age of AI. The inclusion of AI technologies into academic libraries; buildings and grounds; food services; health services; admissions and records; marketing; athletics; financial aid and accounting; purchasing; academic administration; and the whole host of units and services and comprise a university in 2026, is best accomplished if it is done in a comprehensive, coordinated fashion.

To date, we have been limited to a kind of “whack-a-mole” approach to introducing AI into higher education. As an opportunity or challenge appears, we begin creating a strategy and a shopping list of vendors to create an application that will solve that occurrence. Inevitably yet another new application will arise with the growing capability and capacity of AI. Too often that results in an uncoordinated approach in which differing levels and brands of AI are designated to fill the need.

The problem with this approach is that we end up with a multitude of vendors requiring multiple passwords and protocols that are inconsistently compatible with other applications, and afford only an uncoordinated upgrade process. To the extent that each college within the university and the many other non-academic units too often are not synchronized in policies, practices, methods and modes of upgrades and interoperability.

This is why we need a tight structure of committees with persons and positions represented on those committees that are charged with deciding AI policies, practices and vendors. This is not a technology that will be limited to instruction or laboratories or administration. We are entering a period of time in which AI will permeate all aspects of the university. Meanwhile, it will further infuse into commerce, business, personal lives and engagements worldwide.

There is no previous technology that is fully representative of the scope and level of the deep involvement we anticipate that AI will have in our lives in the coming few years. The internet perhaps comes the closest to doing so. It is deeply infused through smart phones and the smart device to device engagement called the “internet of things” that is pervasive today. However, AI subsumes the internet. Its capabilities are much larger in capabilities than the internet that existed in prior years.

Yet, even further immersion of AI will become prominent in the “recursive self-improvement” that we have begun to see in versions of AI algorithms today. That is, that AI will guide the development, improvement and enhancement of itself and its role in devices, practices and policies. We must recognize that we now will be seriously engaged in planning and preparing for the most powerful, lasting and “intelligent” technology that we have encountered as humans. Those who thrive with this technology will be those who are wisest in preparing and implementing the deep integration of this into our institutions. Is your university prepared for the world-changing, humanity-changing AI that we see emerge in 2026 and 2027? Are you prepared to take a leading role in guiding that change for the best interests of your colleagues, students and the entire university?

This column was originally published in Inside Higher Ed.