18 November 2025 - DIG25 Shaun Breeze
UCISA DIG25 AI: Friend or Foe
Our Relationship with AI
Shaun Breeze
UCISA DIG25 offered a sobering reminder that AI is no longer something “on the horizon” it is here, shaping how we learn, teach, lead, and work.
At the University of Leeds, we’ve taken steps toward adoption: implementing Microsoft Copilot for staff and students, delivering AI guidance training to promote safe and equitable use, and embedding governance frameworks. Yet amid the energy of the conference, one question kept coming back to me:
We’re implementing AI but are we learning how to use it effectively and where it adds the most value?
Much of the higher education sector’s focus remains on efficiency: saving time, automating workflows, and simplifying complexity. Yet as Mo Gawdat writes in Scary Smart, “what we teach is what they become.”
If the AI models we build learn primarily from our drive for speed and productivity, are we unintentionally teaching AI to value efficiency over empathy? Speed over caution? Automation over human touch?
From Automation to Augmentation
Listening to the University of Manchester’s session at DIG25, this tension became clear. True transformation isn’t about faster marking or instant summaries it’s about thoughtful collaboration between people, process, and platforms. The most meaningful use of AI in education will emerge not from automation but from augmentation: when technology amplifies our ability to connect, collaborate, think critically, and care.
We can’t afford to treat AI as a closed system or a single project. We need dedicated, safe sandpit spaces for exploration, reflection and iteration, with clear guardrails that encourages exploration, reflection, and iteration. This was reinforced during the practical session on writing an AI policy and guardrails for universities. That exercise highlighted what’s essential:
- Strategic sponsorship that is visible and accountable, connecting executive vision with practical innovation.
- Collaboration across silos, encouraging faculties and professional services to share learning and ideas openly.
- Evolving governance, where policies grow with our expanding use and understanding. Governance that encourages openness, not restriction.
By creating these conditions, we move from control to curiosity, nurturing AI as a service.
My Key Takeaways
Sustainable AI culture requires balance:
- People: Empower staff and students to engage critically, creatively, and ethically with AI.
- Process: Governance and policy must be living and evolving, responding to what we learn as adoption grows.
- Platforms: Think whole system, not silos, ensuring technology serves purpose, learning, and inclusivity.
In all of this, we need to share our learning, collaborate within and beyond the sector, keep ethics at the heart of everything, and be open to failing. To lead in this space, universities must move beyond pilots and procurement. We must cultivate strategic empathy, understanding how AI impacts every corner of our institution from lecture theatres to leadership meetings.
Looking Ahead
DIG25 reminded me that our relationship with AI began a long time ago, but our adoption and understanding have not kept pace. Now is our time to lead not cautiously, but collaboratively. And if you wanted my view; AI is a friend but one that needs extra care and attention.
For my first UCISA conference, I was warmly welcomed and gained so much from the two days. Beyond the excellent hospitality of the UCISA team, the real value was in the connections and conversations that will shape our AI journey. I am grateful to UCISA and the University of Leeds for supporting me in obtaining a bursary place.
