By Max Karpinski (University of Toronto)
When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, it brought artificial intelligence from research labs into classrooms almost overnight. In just a few years, universities have had to respond to a technology reshaping how knowledge is created, shared and evaluated.
As part of the HEQCO Consortium on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), researchers from the University of Toronto, Western University and McMaster University have been studying how Ontario universities are adapting to this shift. The work has unfolded in three phases:
- Literature review: A mapping of global GenAI ethics and governance frameworks.
- Environmental scan: A series of interviews and institutional reviews exploring how Ontario universities are implementing and managing GenAI.
- AI Summit for Ontario Universities: An event held at the University of Toronto November 12–13, 2025 that brought together sector leaders from across Ontario to explore shared challenges, exchange insights and identify collective next steps for navigating GenAI in higher education.
Listening Across the Sector
Following our literature review, the second phase of the project, the environmental scan, gave us an opportunity to meet one-on-one with university leaders to learn how they are navigating this period of profound change within their institutions.
During October 2025, the research team conducted 18 interviews with thought and policy leaders representing 15 Ontario universities. Participants included provosts and vice-provosts, special advisors on GenAI, librarians, directors of teaching and learning centres and developers — individuals closely involved in shaping institutional strategies and policies around GenAI.
Between Curiosity and Caution
Many university leaders see GenAI as a way to enhance learning, expand access and ease the administrative load that often limits staff time with students. Across Ontario, that promise is beginning to take shape in practical, human-centred ways.
At the University of Guelph, program advisors are exploring automation to “free up people to do better work [and] spend more time advising students rather than just checking transcripts.” At Carleton University, admissions and recruitment teams are using GenAI to tailor information for prospective students, streamlining communication and improving access. Together, these examples show how GenAI can help build institutions that are both more efficient and more equitable, places where human expertise remains focused on the work that matters most.
Yet these innovations also surface important concerns. Throughout our conversations, we heard about staff fears regarding AI-related job losses. Interviewees also raised broader ethical and environmental issues. Rhonda Koster relayed the concern of an Indigenous student at Lakehead University regarding “the amount of water [GenAI] consumes when many of our nations have never had clean drinking water.” Others spoke about potential mental health impacts and the need to ensure that rapid adoption does not outpace student wellbeing or institutional ethics.
Across Ontario, universities are already working to embed equity, sustainability and a commitment to the people at the heart of their institutions into every conversation about GenAI. The focus is not simply on adopting new technologies but on ensuring they strengthen the human connections, ethical commitments and social responsibilities that define higher education.
Teaching and Learning
Instructors across Ontario are wrestling with what GenAI means for learning itself. The conversations we heard ranged from deep concern to cautious optimism, but all shared a recognition that GenAI has changed the classroom and that universities better evolve with it.
Sean Kheraj from Toronto Metropolitan University described the shift: “The biggest disruption has been undermining the learning environment. I now have students and faculty who don’t trust each other, and all think that robots are doing the work.” The sudden presence of GenAI has not only reshaped assessment but also the necessary trust that underpins teaching itself.
“The sudden presence of GenAI has reshaped assessment and the trust that underpins teaching itself.”
Byron Sheldrick at the University of Guelph sees adaptation as essential: “We can’t go forth with a curriculum … where you pretend AI doesn’t exist, and then people go out into a world where AI is everywhere.” Many others echoed this view, noting that employers now expect graduates to be confident and capable in using GenAI tools. The challenge for universities is not to avoid the technology, but to teach students to use it responsibly, creatively and with a critical understanding of its impact.
Trish McLaren at Wilfrid Laurier University described how the institution is fostering “a culture of critical and informed use of AI,” where faculty and students learn to make deliberate choices about when, and when not, to rely on the technology. That same spirit, what many called critical AI literacy, surfaced again and again in our interviews: the idea that higher education’s role is not to chase every new tool, but to model thoughtful, ethical engagement with the ones that matter.
“Higher education’s role is to model thoughtful, ethical engagement with the tools that matter.”
Some institutions are already building spaces for that kind of reflection. At York University, Chloë Brushwood-Rose described the launch of “assessment hackathons,” or informal workshops where faculty bring their course syllabi and rewrite them together, discussing how to address GenAI use transparently and creatively in the classroom. These sessions, she noted, are as much about rebuilding trust and community as they are about pedagogy.
Universities are reimagining what it means to teach and learn in a GenAI-driven world. From concerns about trust in the classroom to efforts to integrate GenAI responsibly and transparently, educators are navigating both the risks and opportunities of this technological shift. What emerges is a shared commitment to critical GenAI literacy, a vision of higher education that prepares students not just to use new tools, but to engage with them thoughtfully, ethically and creatively.
From Values to Action
Universities are also asking hard questions about governance and institutional direction. The need for principled but flexible governance came up repeatedly. Policies, respondents agreed, must allow for departments and faculties to adapt guidelines to their own disciplinary contexts, while still maintaining a coherent institutional stance. At Trent University, this was being translated into action: rather than setting rigid GenAI rules, the institution is developing “a set of guiding principles” that departments can use to craft context-specific practices.
“GenAI policies must allow for departments to adapt guidelines to their own contexts while maintaining a coherent institutional stance.”
Universities are striving to balance direction with flexibility, developing governance models that keep values, not technology, at the centre. Institutions in Ontario are learning that leading in the age of GenAI means guiding with principles rather than prescriptions and trusting their communities to adapt those principles to their own contexts.
Collaboration as Leadership
The push for GenAI literacy must also be balanced with attention to equity and access. Smaller universities in particular voiced concern that uneven resources could create a two-tiered system, with some campuses advancing quickly while others struggle to keep pace. Emily Tufts and Fergal O’Hagan from Trent University proposed a clear solution, modeled in part on already existing collaborative and cross-institutional initiatives such as eCampus Ontario: “If we are genuinely concerned about equity, then we should be looking at things not just at an institutional level, but at the sector level.”
This call for collaboration was echoed across the sector. Carleton University’s David Hornsby described the need for partnerships that create sector-wide alignment: “The effort is to bring the right people to the table and prevent us from going down our own roads.” Collaboration, he suggested, is not merely a matter of coordination, but an ethical commitment to work collectively on challenges that extend far beyond any single campus.
“Collaboration is not merely a matter of coordination, but an ethical commitment to work collectively on challenges that extend beyond the campus.”
Together, these examples highlight a growing consensus: the future of GenAI in higher education will depend not only on innovation within universities, but on their willingness to share knowledge, infrastructure and purpose across the system.
Moving Forward
The arrival of GenAI has been swift and disruptive, compelling universities to reconsider long-standing practices and, in many ways, the very purpose of higher education. Yet this disruption has also created space for reflection and renewal. As Chloë Brushwood-Rose observed, “We have to remember why we exist and find a way to re-articulate that in this new context.”
As our interviews show, Ontario’s universities are not moving forward reactively or carelessly but taking the emergence of GenAI as an opportunity to lead with integrity, collaboration and a deep commitment to equity, sustainability and the people at the heart of education.