College Tech Officers on the Rise of AI

Inside Higher Ed’s fourth annual Survey of Campus Chief Technology/Information Officers, conducted with Hanover Research, is out now. The survey gathered insights from 108 college and university chief technology and information officers at two- and four-year institutions across the U.S. about the following issues:

CTOs as strategic partners
IT infrastructure and investments
Artificial intelligence adoption and governance
Cybersecurity readiness and challenges
Sustainability and environmental impact of technology
Staff recruitment and retention challenges
Digital transformation priorities and barriers
Emerging technologies beyond AI
Digital learning
Data and student success

On Wednesday, June 18, at 2 p.m. Eastern, Inside Higher Ed will present a webcast with campus technology leaders who will share their perspectives on the findings. Register for that discussion here.

Read our initial reporting on the survey—on uneven student access to generative AI tools and how institutions are struggling to respond to the rise of AI amid other fundamental challenges—here and here. Download the full survey here. And check out these key findings:

While many CTOs (59 percent) do have a seat at the executive leadership table at their institution, only about half (53 percent) feel their knowledge is fully leveraged to inform strategic decisions involving technology.
Legacy infrastructure is hampering innovation, say 60 percent of CTOs, with implications for student success: Most rate their learning management systems highly (91 percent), but just a third (33 percent) believe their investments in student success technology have been highly effective.
Despite the buzz about AI, only a third of CTOs (34 percent) report that investing in generative AI is a high or essential priority for their institution, with even fewer prioritizing investment in AI agents (28 percent) or predictive AI (24 percent).
While most CTOs report effective collaboration channels between IT and academic affairs on AI policy (66 percent), only one in three (35 percent) believe their institution is handling the rise of AI adeptly. Just 11 percent indicate their institution has a comprehensive AI strategy.

Cybersecurity remains a concern, with only 31 percent of CTOs feeling very or extremely confident in their institution’s ability to prevent cyberattacks. The most common security measures taken include multifactor authentication (90 percent) and required cybersecurity training for staff (86 percent). But just a fraction (26 percent) report required cybersecurity training for students, who are important players in this space.
Technology staffing remains a significant challenge, with 70 percent of CTOs struggling to hire new technology employees and 37 percent facing retention issues. The primary factor is a usual suspect for higher education: competition from better-paying opportunities outside the sector.
Student success is driving digital transformation priorities, with 68 percent of CTOs saying leveraging data for student success is a high or essential priority, followed by teaching and learning (59 percent). The top barriers to digital transformation in 2025 are insufficient IT personnel, inadequate financial investment and data-quality issues.
Environmental sustainability is largely overlooked in technology planning, with 60 percent of CTOs reporting that their institution has no sustainability goals related to technology use, and 69 percent saying senior leaders don’t consider environmental impact in technology decisions.
A majority of institutions represented (61 percent) have not partnered with online program managers and aren’t considering it. At the same time, 59 percent of CTOs express confidence in the quality of their institution’s online and hybrid offerings in general, and half (49 percent) somewhat or strongly agree that student demand for online and/or hybrid course options has increased substantially in the last year.
While most CTOs believe their institution effectively uses data to support student success (60 percent), and nearly as many report a data function structure that supports analytics needs (52 percent), just 11 percent report having unified data models, which can reduce data siloes and improve data governance

This independent editorial project was made possible with support from Softdocs, Grammarly, Jenzabar and T-Mobile for Education.