ASU's ChatGPT experiment drew 400 proposals in weeks

Arizona State University’s dalliance with generative AI started with a simple question. Instead of dictating how faculty should use the technology, the university asked them what they wanted to solve. The response was nothing short of a stampede. Within weeks of launching an internal AI Innovation Challenge in February 2024, ASU received proposals from more than 80% of its schools and colleges. CIO Lev Gonick admitted the team expected only a handful of early adopters. “Our few adopters quickly became hundreds,” he said, forcing a second round of submissions just a month later to accommodate the crush of interest.

By July, the initiative had ballooned to over 400 proposals, with some 200 projects now active across departments ranging from engineering to the humanities. The sheer diversity of adoption caught administrators off guard. While they anticipated heavy use in technical fields, Gonick noted surprise at traction in nearly every corner of the university. One standout project, called ‘Sam,’ is a ChatGPT-powered chatbot that lets health solutions students role-play patient interactions. Clinical Professor Colleen Cordes found the bot’s transcripts “immensely easier” to use for grading qualitative feedback, even if the tool isn’t flawless.

Other efforts dig into deeper academic pain points. A writing companion project uses the AI to give students real-time feedback on scholarly arguments. Ph.D. student Amber Hedquist is testing ChatGPT’s ability to help researchers recruit study participants ethically, specifically by translating complex recruitment materials into accessible language. This isn’t just a scattering of small pilots; it represents a structural bet by ASU leadership on personalized learning at a massive scale. President Michael Crow framed the move as essential to the institution’s identity, arguing that no two people learn identically and that AI is now the primary asset for tailoring education.

Underpinning the flashy project count is a deliberate strategy to avoid top-down tech mandates. Gonick attributes the program’s velocity to the university’s habit of letting community needs drive adoption. With 181,000 students and a nine-year streak as U.S. News’ most innovative university, ASU is using that credibility to set a precedent. The endgame, as Crow sketches it, is a future where higher education is technologically diversified and threaded throughout a person’s entire life. Whether that vision holds up under the weight of 200 simultaneous AI experiments remains the real test — but the early signal is that faculty, at least, are ready to find out.