Leading in the AI Era

Set the agenda and innovate with integrity.

Generative AI is rapidly shaping how everyday Americans gather, understand, and share information – and creating efficiencies that will change how professionals do their jobs. As such, it is poised to remake how higher education works and how colleges and universities demonstrate their public value. That transformation will be no easy feat. Campus stakeholders are deeply ambivalent about the potential and threat of generative AI, and often divided. This report examines how institutions can responsibly and ethically meet the moment.

With exclusive survey data and reporting based on dozens of interviews, the report shows how innovative colleges are working to infuse their operations with AI, the guardrails they are building to avoid pitfalls, how they propose to evaluate their students’ learning, and how they envision paying for it all.

Readers of this report will:

• Learn from our survey of more than 900 stakeholders what hopes and fears they have about generative AI and what they think about how their institutions are responding to its rise.
• Find ways to balance innovation with appropriate caution.
• See how innovative institutions are improving decision making around generative AI.
• Know what factors to weigh when considering large purchases or licensing of the technology.
  

Date: November 2025
Pages: 64
Digital file size: 19.8 MB

Individual Print and Individual Digital purchases are intended for one individual’s use only. Institutional Print is intended strictly for library collections. To share a digital copy with up to 25 people, please select Team Digital Access. 

To share the digital version with more than 25 people, learn more about our digital licensing options and request a quote. For multi-copy purchases, please refer to our bulk pricing schedule.

Build on the insights from this report by joining our upcoming virtual forum, What It Takes to Lead in the AI Era. Join us on Thursday, December 4, at 2 p.m. ET to hear experts unpack our survey findings and share real-world strategies for guiding institutions through the AI era.