How OpenAI Plans to Make 'AI-Native Universities'

OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has a plan to overhaul college education — by embedding its artificial intelligence (AI) tools in every facet of campus life.

- NATASHA SINGER

If its strategy succeeds, universities would give students AI assistants to guide and tutor them from orientation day through graduation. Professors would provide customized AI study bots for each class. Career services would offer recruiter chatbots for students to practice for job interviews. And undergraduates could turn on a chatbot's voice mode to be quizzed aloud ahead of a test.

OpenAI dubs its sales pitch "AI-native universities." "Our vision is that, over time, AI would become part of the core infrastructure of higher education," Leah Belsky, OpenAI's vice president of education, said. In the same way that colleges give students school email accounts, she said, soon "every student would have access to their personalized AI account."

Last year, OpenAI hired Belsky, an ed tech startup veteran, to oversee its education efforts. She has a two-pronged strategy: marketing OpenAI's premium paid services to universities while advertising free ChatGPT to students.