A President’s Journey to AI Adoption

José Luis Cruz Rivera explains how he’s come to use AI in academic leadership, and the sources of inspiration and learning he’s found along the way.

s a university president, I’ve learned that responsible leadership sometimes means eating the proverbial dog food—testing things out myself before asking others to dive in. So, when AI began making waves and early adopters on campus started using it, I rolled up my sleeves and gave it a try.

Honestly, I was hoping it would flop, much like the overhyped MOOCs of yesteryear or previous prophecies of AI being “just around the corner” that didn’t materialize. Not because I’m a Luddite—far from it—but because the idea of integrating yet another transformative technology into work, life and play felt like too much to handle right now.

Couldn’t we just pause for a year or two?

Didn’t look like it.

Now, after more than a year of hands-on experience and completing MIT’s executive program Leading the AI-Driven Organization, this is the short version of the story of how I ate the dog food and came to savor it with gusto.

I started small by using AI to help draft responses to routine emails. I would feed it the email and prompt it for a response with a certain tone and conveying a particular message. It would instantly produce a draft, and I would give it notes on how to improve. After a couple of iterations, it was cut and paste time. As I kept at it, the AI’s need for notes diminished as it “learned” my style and values. At this point, I can feed it a full email thread, ask it for the major decision points, quickly skim the thread for accuracy, articulate my decisions and ask it for a draft response. With minimal editing, I can be hitting the send button in a small fraction of the time it would have taken me to do this on my own. This small change freed up hours each week that I can now use for the things that matter most.

Read more about José Luis Cruz Rivera’s journey at Inside Higher Ed.