Arizona State University announces collaboration with OpenAI on ChatGPT Enterprise

Arizona State University announced on January 18, 2024 that it had entered a collaboration with OpenAI, the company that develops ChatGPT, to bring ChatGPT Enterprise into the university. ASU said it was the first higher education institution to collaborate with OpenAI.

Beginning in February 2024, the university planned to invite faculty and staff to submit proposals for using the tool. ASU named three areas of focus: improving student success, opening new directions for research and streamlining organizational processes. The university said the enterprise version of the product uses enterprise-grade security measures intended to protect user data. Its chief information officer described the goal as developing AI-based projects for teaching, scholarly research and administration.

The agreement adds to existing AI activity at ASU. The university said its research arm, Knowledge Enterprise, has 19 centers, initiatives and laboratories working on AI, with more than $340 million in active awards, and that in 2023 it formed a team of technologists, called AI Acceleration, to build AI tools. The announcement came a little more than a year after ChatGPT was released to the public, a period in which, according to ASU, nearly two-thirds of organizations had begun exploring how to integrate AI.