AI Readiness

Move From AI Experimentation to Institutional AI Capability

AI is already reshaping how higher education operates, communicates, teaches, supports students, and makes decisions. Presidents, cabinets, and boards feel the urgency. Teams across campus are experimenting. Vendors are flooding inboxes.

But at most institutions, AI activity is fragmented, uneven, and disconnected from strategy.

Carnegie’s AI Readiness strategy helps colleges and universities move from scattered pilots and informal experimentation to a clear, institution-wide understanding of where they stand, where risk exists, and where meaningful opportunity lives.

We partner with institutions to develop an AI strategy that aligns the Cabinet, allocates resources effectively, and prioritizes a practical roadmap as the institution moves toward coordinated, responsible AI adoption.

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Our Approach

AI transformation in higher education is not primarily a technology problem. It’s a readiness problem. AI is not going to replace humans, but humans with AI are going to replace humans without AI. The same is true for institutions.

Through our work with presidents, cabinets, and operational teams, we repeatedly see the same pattern: institutions are highly aware of AI’s potential but lack alignment on how to move forward. Teams run isolated pilots without a shared roadmap. Vendors create urgency without institutional clarity. Most conversations center on teaching and learning, while the broader operational opportunity across the institution goes underexplored. At the same time, adoption varies widely from one cabinet role to another.

AI delivers real value when institutions apply it to the right use cases, supported by the right data, and delivered in the right way to the people doing the work. Our approach begins by helping institutions understand whether the foundational conditions for successful AI adoption are in place, and where they are not.

At the center of this work is the AI Readiness Assessment—a higher-ed–specific diagnostic that measures your institution’s maturity across the dimensions that determine whether AI can be adopted responsibly, effectively, and at scale

Building the Foundation for Institutional AI Progress

AI Readiness Assessment

Establish clarity on whether your institution has the conditions necessary for successful AI adoption. The AI Readiness Assessment evaluates maturity across strategy, governance and ethics, data, technology, culture, and operational application, revealing where risk exists, where opportunity is being missed, and how readiness varies across cabinet roles. The result is a benchmarked, higher-ed–specific view of where you stand today and a practical roadmap for where to focus first.

Understand Where AI Has Practical Impact Across Higher Ed

Practical Map of AI Use Cases in Higher Ed

The Practical Map of AI Use Cases shows where AI has real, responsible impact across presidential cabinet roles, from enrollment and marketing to academics, student success, IT, finance, and research. This research-based map helps leaders prioritize the right use cases for their institution, align teams around practical opportunity, and focus efforts where AI can deliver measurable value now.

How the AI Readiness Assessment Works

Map Your Leadership and Operational Landscape

We begin by identifying how AI decisions are currently made across your institution—from the president and cabinet to operational leaders in enrollment, academics, student success, IT, finance, research, and communications.

This step ensures the assessment reflects how your campus actually functions, not how AI “should” be organized in theory. It surfaces where AI responsibility is clear, where it is informal, and where ownership is missing entirely.

Evaluate Maturity Across Eight Dimensions of AI Readiness

Using a higher-ed–specific diagnostic, we measure your institution’s current state across:

  • Strategy & leadership alignment
  • Governance, policy, and responsible AI practices
  • Data quality, access, and infrastructure
  • Technology environment and tool adoption
  • Talent, skills, and institutional culture
  • Operational use across cabinet roles
  • Student success and engagement applications
  • Institutional research and analytics capacity

This reveals where AI experimentation is happening, where foundational gaps create risk, and where readiness already exists.

Assess AI Adoption Across Cabinet Roles

AI opportunity looks very different for a provost than it does for a CIO, VP Enrollment, CFO, or VP Student Success. We map how AI awareness, exploration, and adoption vary across leadership roles to show where alignment is needed most.

Benchmark Against Peers and Sector Research

Your results are benchmarked against:

  • Peer institutions in Carnegie’s network
  • EDUCAUSE-informed reference points
  • Sector cohorts such as R1/R2 universities, community colleges, and adult/online-focused institutions
  • Published research on AI adoption in higher education leadership

This provides context for where you are leading, where you are average, and where you are behind.

Connect Readiness to Practical AI Use Cases

Using Carnegie’s Practical Map of AI Use Cases across presidential cabinet roles, we translate readiness findings into clear examples of where AI can have meaningful, responsible impact for your institution.

This step moves the conversation from “Are we ready?” to “What should we actually be doing first?”

Deliver a Custom Institutional AI Roadmap

The final output is a practical, higher-ed–specific AI roadmap aligned to:

  • Governance and policy development
  • Operational efficiency and automation
  • Teaching and learning support
  • Student success and engagement
  • Marketing, enrollment, and communications
  • Institutional research and decision-making

Your leadership team leaves with a shared understanding of where to start, what to prioritize, and how to move from fragmented pilots to coordinated, institution-wide progress.

Ready to Get Started?

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Ready to Understand Your Institution’s AI Readiness?

AI is moving faster than governance, shared understanding, and institutional alignment.

The AI Readiness Assessment gives your leadership team the clarity needed to move from experimentation to coordinated, responsible, institution-wide progress.