Many higher education institutions are still grappling with AI adoption and its impact on their educational missions and campus operations.
While college leaders understand the tremendous potential benefits of this groundbreaking technology—from improving curriculum and campus life to streamlining operations and administrative overhead—many are fearful or uncertain about their ability to manage the transformation associated with AI deployment.
In fact, a recent independent survey revealed that just 9% of CTOs and CIOs believe that higher education is prepared for AI’s rise.
But AI and automation can help alleviate the financial and operational challenges brought on by continued FAFSA snafus, the coming enrollment cliff and the decrease in federal higher education funding. So, while these concerns are understandable, CIOs must learn to overcome them.
Taking a pragmatic approach to AI adoption can make this complex undertaking less daunting for their IT and administrative teams, enabling them to realize key benefits with minimum disruption to daily operations.
I’ve spent the last 20 years working closely with higher education technology leaders, helping them navigate and accelerate digital transformation. Over the course of this journey, I’ve worked with several higher education tech leaders on a functional playbook to help them introduce, implement and manage change across their institutions in a way that delivers meaningful results without impacting existing operations.
When applied to AI, this playbook emphasizes three key phases—why, where and how—as essential to successful AI implementation.
Why: Student agency and self-service
It is important to discover what inefficiencies exist across the institution in order to understand where to implement AI first. In this first phase, the goal for the CIO is to uncover and create more opportunities for student agency and self-service, which will ultimately become hallmarks of the digital campus experience.
Action: Higher ed CIOs and their teams must meet with their constituents and end users to reveal the highest priority needs as well as better understand current operational processes. From there, it will be important to uncover current student challenges as well as expectations for AI and automation.
Recommendation: Don’t shy away from new approaches. Today’s students are eager to embrace new technologies, especially those that have a transformational impact. Therefore, CIOS must consider pushing boundaries in uncharted territories by asking “what if” and “how can we make this better.”
Where: Saving time
CIOs must determine where to best optimize key processes and uncover the highest priority areas for change. With limited time and resources for AI implementation, they must carefully select where AI can have the greatest and most meaningful impact in their enterprises.
Action: The easiest way to start optimization efforts is by removing time-consuming manual administrative work.
Recommendation: To make greater progress during this phase, CIOs should break down the operational and departmental silos on campus and bring disparate teams together to prioritize key AI initiatives. This collaborative approach ensures that everyone has a say in the change management process, which will ultimately ensure a smooth implementation.
How: Actively coach AI users
After AI deployment begins, it is up to the CIO to build and sustain a culture of innovation that supports a fully modern digital campus.
Action: First and foremost, CIOs should actively coach end users to drive successful user adoption. It may be necessary to invest in training and consulting to achieve widespread adoption, but the investment will be worthwhile.
Recommendation: As part of this process, higher ed technology teams should cultivate the support of campus leaders who will champion AI usage and other modernization efforts.
An exciting time for CIOs
To ensure a successful change initiative, CIOs must partner with college presidents and other campus leaders. Additionally, CIOs should move to the cloud before embarking on a major modernization effort with AI, as this will ensure agility, flexibility, and greater access to data, which are all essential to successful AI implementations.
Digital transformation is not a static, one-time event; it’s an ongoing effort. Therefore, CIOs must continue to identify areas of improvement throughout their institution and replicate successful AI and automation efforts in other departments across campus.
Despite the ongoing changes and uncertainty across the higher education landscape, this is an exciting time for CIOs to drive innovation and evolve their digital campuses. To stay true to their mission, they should adopt and maintain a student-centered ethos. If their goal is to deliver an outstanding student experience across their campuses, they will make the best technological decisions and help their schools thrive during a period of unprecedented change.
