Why AI Strategy Belongs in the President’s Office
The most dangerous words in higher education right now are: “We have a committee looking at AI.” It is a pattern that plays out across campuses with remarkable continuity and tends to unfold in the same predictable order. A president realizes that AI is no longer optional. Sensing the urgency but not knowing which path to take, they commission a task force, appoint a committee, and hand the initiative over to HR, a newly assembled innovation team, or a willing principal. Then, after they check the box, it moves on.
Six months later, the consequences of this handover become visible not as a single failure, but as a quiet fragmentation. One department operates a chatbot for advice. Another purchased a productivity tool that the IT department only knew existed after the contract was signed. A third designed an AI policy that bears little resemblance to what teachers actually do in the classroom. Everyone is busy and everyone thinks someone else is in charge. No one is coordinating, and the institution as a whole has not moved an inch in a coherent direction.
This is a failure of leadership, and it is happening on a large scale, quietly and simultaneously, at institutions that see themselves as forward-looking. Educause’s 2025 AI Landscape Study found that 57% of institutions now view AI as a strategic priority, which sounds like progress until you read the next number. Only 22% can demonstrate an institution-wide strategy. Of them, more than half are managing the rollout on an ad hoc basis across different departments, essentially improvising. The institutions that are actually closing this gap have one thing in common: It’s not a better committee, a bigger budget, or a more sophisticated technology stack. This is a president who has never given up the reins.
AI is, First and Foremost, a Change Management Juggernaut
The instinct to treat AI as a technology problem is understandable. Technology is visible. There are vendors, demos, and price tags. But the reason most campus AI efforts fail has nothing to do with the tools and everything to do with who is responsible for the change.
AI simultaneously touches on workforce roles, academic integrity, curriculum design, student services, data management, and budget allocation. Taken together, this area describes an enterprise-wide transformation, and no board member, CIO, or HR leader has the cross-functional authority to lead one. Only the president does.
In my experience in hundreds of institutions, this pattern holds true in every major organizational transformation. When the CEO leads from the front, change sticks. When they hand it over, it stays put. AI demands the only thing only a president can provide, an institutional mandate with real resource authority.
What Delegation Actually Produces
When AI strategy is sent down the leadership ladder, predictable things happen. Departments purchase point solutions without corporate coordination. Shadow systems arise. Faculty and staff receive conflicting guidance. Students experience inconsistencies throughout the institution.
Educause also found that 34% of educators believe their leaders are underestimating the costs of AI adoption, and only 2% report that new funding sources for AI projects have been identified. Underestimated costs and no new resources are a reason for stalled momentum. It shows you that the financial and strategic architecture of AI has not been claimed by the people who control the institutional capital. This is a presidential-level problem.
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