Universities must develop an adaptive and clearly communicated approach to AI. Typically, university decision-making operates through lengthy processes built around committee meetings, deliberation and procedural review. With AI technologies evolving so quickly, such timing often does not work.
As someone passionate about strategic communications and learning, I have been exploring how universities are approaching the challenge of communicating AI initiatives and embedding it into an institution’s culture. In conversations with Sarah Wanger, assistant dean of graduate education, and Brad Wheeler, adviser to the dean for technology and innovation, I gained insight into how the Indiana University Kelley School of Business has navigated AI adoption across a community of roughly 400 faculty members, 400 staff and 13,000 students.
By summer 2025, leaders at the Kelley School concluded that earlier AI guidance was too rigid and policy-heavy for a rapidly evolving environment. Under the leadership of Dean Patrick Hopkins, they decided to take a fundamentally different approach. Eventually, Hopkins and a small group crafted the Kelley AI Playbook, a lean, values-based framework developed by a small team rather than a large committee. Released in July 2025, the playbook is anchored around five principles.
