A survey from the education firm EAB shows that almost two-thirds (62%) of university student success staff believe artificial intelligence (AI) can help them identify students who need support. Further, 69% of staff say they have used AI in their work over the past year. However, only around 20% of respondents said their institution is collecting information about how student success teams are using the technology.

“EAB’s survey shows that student success professionals are turning to AI to better support their students, even if their institutions are not encouraging them to do so proactively,” said EAB director of strategic research, Tara Zirkel. “Advisors and counselors want university leaders to provide training and help them put institutional guardrails around their AI efforts to ensure they use the technology responsibly.”

The survey also found that 61% of respondents would like to be able to dedicate at least some work time to experimenting with AI technology, and the same percentage would like the opportunity to learn from peers who are using AI. Still, 71% of respondents say their institution never or rarely encourages student success teams to share what they are learning about AI with their peers.

Along with a desire for greater adoption of AI, student success professionals also expressed the need to exercise caution. Sixty-three percent of respondents said they feared AI might introduce errors in communication that could negatively impact students. Fifty-four percent worried that AI-generated content might contain more bias than content generated solely by university staff.

EAB’s report also contains recommendations for helping universities, including tribal colleges and universities, to develop a strategy that fosters responsible adoption of AI across the institution. Those recommendations include the following objectives: 1) centralize institutional AI efforts by making AI a strategic priority through the development of a cross-functional team that collects AI best practices and evaluates enterprise systems that use AI to help scale student support efforts; 2) develop AI collaboration spaces to create dedicated time for AI professional development and promote peer-to-peer sharing of strategies and best practices; and 3) debate “how to do AI right” by openly addressing lingering staff concerns about AI risks and sharing examples of tested AI use cases.

EAB’s survey was distributed to student success professionals and executive leadership at colleges across the United States in March and April 2024. The survey was completed by 221 respondents, including advisors, deans, financial aid professionals, cabinet-level leaders, and others at two- and four-year schools of varying sizes that were both public and private institutions.