The recent launch of OpenAI ChatGPT’s study mode feature — an AI-powered interactive guidance for learners — marks a promising step toward responsible integration of GenAI into education. Designed to encourage deeper thinking, it scaffolds learning through questions and hints rather than simply providing answers. It is similar to earlier efforts like Khan Academy’s Khanmigo, which guides school students through active-learning approaches. A few months ago, multiple AI products in education and research were announced, including Discovery at Microsoft Build, and LearnLM at Google I/O 2025.
These developments indicate that generative AI (GenAI) is reshaping how we learn, teach, and research. In India, the higher education system stands at a similar inflection point. From IITs to regional universities, faculty and students are beginning to explore GenAI tools as learning companions.
The key question is not whether GenAI will be adopted. It’s how do we ensure the adoption is meaningful, responsible, and inclusive.
Over the past year, the Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI) and the Teaching Learning Centre at IIT-Madras have — through multiple workshops, a national online study across 60 institutions, and the GenAI4Edu initiative — explored how Indian higher education institutions (HEIs) are engaging with GenAI. The findings were encouraging, but with a dose of caution.
The gap
Students are leveraging the tools for brainstorming assignments, summarising complex materials, and refining their writing. Faculty members are exploring GenAI for lecture preparation and assignment generation. While the initial engagement with GenAI tools has been promising, sustained adoption necessitates integrating them into daily academic routines. Our studies indicate that while users are impressed by GenAI’s capabilities, consistent usage remains a hurdle. Building habitual use is essential for meaningful integration.
Institutions can play a pivotal role here. Embedding GenAI access into digital learning platforms, incorporating AI-assisted tasks into curricula, and providing regular prompts can foster habitual use. The more routine the use, the greater the potential for benefits.
The IIT-Madras workshops also highlighted concerns over the ethical implications of GenAI in education. Faculty members expressed worries over plagiarism, over-reliance on AI, and the authenticity of AI-generated content, echoing global discussions on these lines.
To address these issues, there is a need for clear guidelines on appropriate use, awareness programmes on AI biases and misinformation, and thoughtful redesign of assessments to value originality and critical thinking.
The levers
To ensure responsible and inclusive GenAI adoption, Indian HEIs should consider three measures: build confidence in students in using GenAI tools through training and hands-on sessions; empower faculty as ‘co-creators’ by equipping them with practical use cases, ethical frameworks, and collaborative spaces (a few faculty members at the workshop were already using GenAI tools to enhance courses like programming and applied mechanics); and develop clear, context-specific guidelines on responsible use of GenAI, including citation norms and consequences for misuse. Student and faculty voices must be part of this policymaking process.
Given the diversity of institutions in India, its human capital and success with other digital public infrastructure, the country has an opportunity to create a global model for democratised, ethical, and impactful GenAI integration in education.
The government’s intent to create a Centre of Excellence for AI in Education is in the right direction. GenAI isn’t an optional add-on — it’s a capability that can transform how we teach and learn. For this to happen, we need to design for trust, habit, and inclusion from the start.
(Ravindran is Professor and Head of Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI, IIT-Madras; and Narayanan is Co-founder and President, itihaasa Research and Digital)
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Published on December 15, 2025