“AI adoption is not just a tech question. It is a people question. And it starts with listening.”
On a recent podcast, I was asked a question that stopped me for a moment:
What is the AI adoption rate at your college?
Among students? Faculty? Staff?
It is a good question. But it is also getting harder to answer.
Right now, asking about AI adoption feels a bit like asking about internet adoption. It is no longer limited to a specific tool or app. It is creeping into how we search, write, plan, communicate, and work across departments. In some cases, people are using AI without even realizing it.
But that does not mean we should not try to understand it.
Why I Created an AI Adoption Survey
To get a clearer picture, I created an AI adoption survey for my departments. This is not just to collect data. It is to understand:
- Who is using AI, and how
- What support and training staff still need
- Where AI might be quietly underused
The majority of the people we serve are students. And if students come in with AI-related questions or needs, the goal is not to pass them off and hope for the best. Everyone on our teams should feel confident enough to either offer direct support or make a warm connection to someone who can.
This survey is the first step in that direction.
This Ties into a Bigger Project
The AI Adoption Survey is just one part of a larger initiative I will share more about in an upcoming post. When used together, the survey and the larger project will help identify the kinds of tasks where AI could actually help and show us where it makes the most sense to start testing.
I had a virtual coffee talk with Jeremy Shorr, an educational technology speaker who goes by Just Some Guy From Ohio. In that conversation, he offered a simple but powerful insight:
Ask your team what tasks they do not enjoy or what processes have failed to deliver.
That is often where AI can be the most useful.
That question shifts the focus away from “what can AI do in general” to “what problems do we actually need help with right now?”
A Real Example
A colleague recently approached me with a policy writing nightmare. They were trying to update a document to reflect new standards, but it was turning into death by committee. They had heard that AI could help but did not know where to start.
I walked them through it:
- We uploaded the policy guidelines
- Used AI to evaluate and revise the existing policy in that format
- Reviewed the result for accuracy and tone
In under five minutes, they had a complete draft to bring to the group for editing. And, as we all know, editing is usually a lot easier than starting from scratch.
That is the kind of impact I am hoping this survey will help us scale.
Creating Cognitive Surplus
At an AFIT conference, I heard Dwayne Matthews talk about the idea of cognitive surplus. The idea is simple: if we can free up time by letting AI take on lower-level tasks, we can focus more of our energy on strategic, creative, human-centered work.
That is the direction I want to move in.
But managers and leaders cannot just say “Go use AI.”
They need to walk alongside their teams.
We have to ask:
- What are we already doing with AI?
- What is working, and what is not?
- Where do we want to be?
- And how can we use these tools to grow our human superpowers, not just our productivity?
The AI adoption survey is not about numbers. It is about direction.
And this is how we start.
Typed by me, nudged by AI, approved by coffee. 🍵
Iteration and Innovation in Higher Education 
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