Since ChatGPT made its way into the hands of the public in 2022, artificial intelligence has forever changed the landscape of higher education. In just a few short years, institutions today have pivoted from conversations on “if” AI use should be permitted to “how,” as policies and frameworks are developed to equip educators, students and graduates in this AI era.
According to Robert Half’s 2026 Salary Guide, 54% of hiring managers are already seeking new hires with AI skills, so universities are racing to prepare the workforce of tomorrow. In fact, in 2025, 43% of surveyed institutions now have AI incorporated into their strategic plans and 66% of institutions have already integrated AI into their operations, compared to 49% in 2024, according to recent research from Ellucian.
How are universities across the nation implementing AI tools and policies?
The University of Michigan was the first university to provide campus-wide AI services through its own home-brewed generative AI tool, U-M GPT, in 2023. Arizona State University became the first university to partner with OpenAI in 2024 to support the use of ChatGPT Enterprise in coursework, tutoring and research. Following suit, UCLA announced a similar partnership that is already transforming campus productivity with adaptive learning tools for students, data analysis in research and automated workflows across administration. In fall 2025, Syracuse University announced its integration of Claude with Claude for Education access given to every student, faculty and staff member.
And this trend is popularizing. Thirty-seven percent of colleges and universities now provide chatbot licenses to their entire institution, with 14% having made their own custom bots. Princeton University, for example, offers course-specific chatbots through Bots++, a native integration for Canvas, a learning management system well-utilized in higher education.
Meanwhile, institutions are pivoting from trying to control student AI use to changing how students are evaluated. Instead of typical exams that only grade the final output, students might expect oral exams, in-class writing or evaluations of observed independent performance. Princeton University has publicly announced their intention not to institute AI detectors, and biomedical engineering students at Cornell University now take what professors call “oral defenses” as a way to measure how well students are learning.
Higher education institutions are implementing AI in other ways, too. Morgan State University created its own AI system for grading and advising, Texas A&M trains STEM education majors with virtual reality classroom simulations and Georgia Tech developed its own virtual teaching assistant named “Jill Watson.” Bowling Green State University was the first university in the nation to develop a customizable bachelor’s degree in AI called AI + X, where students can pair majoring in AI with another discipline of their choice.
How is the University of Toledo tackling AI?
Beyond using trendy technologies like a virtual engagement officer named Doug and an AI-powered tutoring platform called CircleIn, UToledo’s AI initiatives are part of a larger Ohio story.
Passed in June 2025, Ohio House Bill 96 mandated all K-12 schools to develop policies on AI use. At the same time, JobsOhio’s AI Ready Ohio initiative will provide in-person and online artificial intelligence training towards workforce and economic development. This initiative positions Ohio as the first state in the nation with this kind of statewide AI initiative. With Toledo marked as one of the program’s seven hubs across Ohio, the University of Toledo is primed to be a regional leader in the field.
So is UToledo rising to the occasion?
Through the university’s newly established AI task force and participation in the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ Institute on Artificial Intelligence in Pedagogy and Curriculum, UToledo has set a target for every graduate to leave with discipline-specific, ethically grounded AI skills that match the demands of their future profession. The task force is also investigating the best ways to incorporate AI into the arts and humanities, curriculum and instruction, healthcare, professional development and policy.
“I go back and forth, but we need to have more AI in our curriculum. We need an AI center. If you’re a freshman at Bowling Green and you want to know who are the AI people, they have a website, you know exactly who you need to talk to, and they’ll hurry up, and they’re responsive,” Fred Ahrens, assistant lecturer in the College of Business and Innovation and member of the university’s AI task force, said. “We don’t have a one-stop shop for AI. We need to; we have to.”
Currently, the campus’s Herb Innovation Center is trying to be this lead voice and guide in the university’s technological advancement. In July 2026, the center hosted a forum for university faculty and students, technology specialists, administrators, and community partners to learn about and discuss the responsible integration of AI into education.
“When it comes to teaching and learning, big discussions are around, basically, are we problem solving, or critically thinking, or doing complex thinking on our own? Or are we off-shooting it to generative AI, and then, as a result, not allowing ourselves to individually grow?” Michael Toland, executive director of the Herb Innovation Center, said.
According to Gerald Natal, another task force member and health and human services librarian on campus, introducing students foundationally to AI in classrooms isn’t as hard as it may seem.
“The hard part is the second objective, which is to see that students are able to incorporate that into their work after they leave the institution, their discipline. So, that can only come really from hands-on use,” Natal said.
UToledo now offers 29 AI courses across six colleges, with 12 more currently in development, which means you can expect to encounter AI literacy at some point during your time at UToledo.
“In general, higher education has gotten to the point where there’s a realization that we need to make sure that all of our students — undergrad, grad, and so forth — even faculty and staff, have at least some minimum level of AI literacy,” Toland said.
Natal said that UToledo is also in the midst of creating a series of modules for faculty and staff to learn about AI — a crucial step given that a recent study by Campbell Academic Technology Services reported that while 86% of students heavily use AI in their studies, only 61% of faculty use it, and they do so minimally.
But whether from the student or staff and faculty side of things, incorporating AI into curriculum may prove more challenging for some majors than others.
“So, there are some majors that are very traditional, and then there are some majors that are very progressive and innovative. And it seems like nursing and healthcare, anyone who’s in a healthcare-related specialty or profession, we’re used to moving fast. We’re used to things changing,” Heidi Shank, assistant professor in the College of Health and Human Services, said. ”Where I think some of the other programs and majors were not used to that.”
Healthcare staff, faculty and professionals are currently piloting custom GPT models at the University of Toledo Medical Center that provide guidance with clinical decision-making and AI tools that auto-transcribe medical notes from conversations between patients and clinicians. Shank also shared how, in her courses last spring, she tested out an AI moderator that conversed with students on various medical scenarios to test how they would apply the information they were taught.
Despite these advancements, Shank wasn’t always open to the idea of AI being used in this way. Her openness ultimately came from educating herself on the benefits and possibilities — to the point that she found herself in the position of convincing her colleagues to be more receptive.
“When people started … opening their minds a little bit, realizing that it’s already here and you’re already using it, and so are our students,” she said, “our task became, let’s make it responsible use.”
