The following email announcement was sent to Rutgers faculty and staff on August 26, 2025.
Dear Members of the Rutgers Community:
As we start a new academic year, artificial intelligence remains a hot topic across higher education, presenting both enormous opportunities and complex challenges. I want to take this opportunity to provide an update on AI at Rutgers and to share guidance and resources to help the Rutgers community navigate AI responsibly.
Let me start by encouraging you to view our updated guidance on AI. Here are the key points:
- Use Rutgers-approved AI tools to protect university data and privacy
- Understand expectations for academic integrity related to AI
- Before using confidential or sensitive data with AI tools, consult with IT staff and review data classification requirements and relevant policies
- Always review and verify AI-generated content
- Follow standard security and procurement processes when adopting AI technologies
As for the AI technologies made available to the Rutgers community, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini are the AI assistants (or “chatbots”) available for free at Rutgers. I want to emphasize the importance of logging into these systems with your Rutgers accounts instead of using a non-Rutgers version of these tools, as this prevents your data from being used to train the models underlying the AI systems.
Along with those chatbots, Google’s NotebookLM is now available at Rutgers—part of our Google suite of tools requiring a ScarletMail account. NotebookLM is an AI research assistant that allows users to upload documents, webpages, and videos to a personal notebook and then uses Google AI to produce study guides, podcasts, and other materials from the uploaded sources.
Additional tools, for specialized uses, are being made available as paid subscriptions from the University Software Portal. ChatGPT Edu is now available as a $20/month subscription. Soon Microsoft 365 Copilot will be available, providing AI integrations with Word, Excel, and other Microsoft tools, as will Google AI Pro for Education, a Google tool with advanced AI capabilities.
I want to thank the more than 100 faculty, researchers, technologists, and other experts collaborating through the AI@Rutgers Initiative. This dedicated group of Rutgers faculty and staff have been working through the summer to identify gaps and opportunities for AI at Rutgers and to draft recommendations for leadership to consider. Their work, including a pilot program to evaluate AI technologies, has been and will continue to be essential as we consider next steps with AI at Rutgers, including policy changes, training, additional guidance, and more.
We’re working together to shape Rutgers’ approach to AI and welcome your thoughts and feedback on these efforts.
Michele Norin
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer