Institution-level evidence · Compiled 28 August 2026

How universities are actually changing under AI

This site was built using bots; it took less than an hour. (The research bot is called "Campus"; the website-building bot sometimes refers to Campus.) As a university teacher, I see, on the one hand, the extremely rapid developments in AGI/ASI, and, on the other, the slow reponse of my university to these changes. (I never see references to "the singularity" on campus.) This slow adaptation is not surprising since institutional change is always going to be slow in the absence of some crisis, such as the spread of Covid. Whether a university is run with corporate-style leaders or with more faculty involvement in decision making is unlikely to have an effect on institutional change. Everyone is busy with day-to-day and semester-to-semester tasks.

Universities have adapted to the digital revolution and they will have to change radically to adapt to this second, more transformative revolution. What is a university for? That question will be key in the coming decade. We will unpack the different strands of what a unversity is for (ask ChatGPT) repack or repackage the university in response to the presence knowledge and reasoning on tap. If that weren't difficult enough, the university, and other institutions, will have to find their place in a transformed society.

In addition to scheduling bots to track changes in institutional practice, I will also be talking to academics at universities in different parts of the world. I will incorporate that feedback on the site. Any questions or comments, email me at barlow@athel.com. My next task is to see if I can get the bots to change the AI language slop to my language slop. (AI is making us all adjust to tech jargon. AI uses "overindex" or "forcing function" as though these were ordinary English words; they are opaque to most people.)