The email described the initiative as "a hub and governance framework" that coordinates the technologies across UK's colleges, libraries, research centers and institutes and academic health care system. Capilouto says UK must lead what he calls a "21st-century land-grant movement in AI.”
The initiative will provide new AI platforms, tools, and training to all faculty, staff, and students. "AI" refers to a broad range of technologies, including pattern recognition and machine learning, as well as popular chatbots running large language models. The email spoke of AI in broad terms, but did name a few specific uses, like using "ambient listening tools" in healthcare settings and providing "curated digital assistants" for students. The email also teased an AI-integrated residence hall, though it did not give any further details regarding its implementation in campus housing.
CATS AI will be guided by five subcommittees - covering education, research, students, health care and administration, and workplace - that report to a leadership council. Nominations to participate in a subcommittee are open.
Ian McClure and Heath Price will serve as interim directors while UK conducts a national search for a permanent leader.
CATS AI will operate under the Advancing Kentucky Together Network. Six partners have joined the initiative, including an unnamed corporate partner. Capilouto acknowledged concerns about AI, but dismissed the idea that rejecting the use of AI tools is a viable strategy.
Read the full email below.
Campus Community,
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping our world — expanding access to information, transforming workplaces, reimagining research and innovation and revolutionizing health care.
At the University of Kentucky, we must be committed to becoming an AI University — where AI enhances how we teach, learn, research, heal and serve the Commonwealth.
Today, we launch CATS AI — the Commonwealth AI Transdisciplinary Strategy — a university-wide initiative to coordinate and deepen our AI efforts across campus and the state.
As an article I recently read called for, this is our first step in leading a 21st-century land-grant movement in AI to advance Kentucky.
Why Now?
In the 1860s, as I was reminded in the commentary, land-grant universities like ours helped build the workforce that powered America’s industrial revolution. Then, land was the frontier.
In the 21st century, cyberspace is the frontier. It’s where the economy is and will be based. Those who excel there — who understand and harness the promise and recognize and respond to the ethical and technical challenges — will grow, succeed and thrive.
No doubt, we have many among us who are already making this recognition and responding. We must build on the work of our colleagues who have developed and adopted AI in their teaching, research, scholarship and workflows already.
We can do so by expanding capabilities and access to resources to connect and amplify these on-going activities, and harnessing the potential being developed in labs and classrooms already across campus.
UK must lead in this moment. We must appropriately use AI to enhance and accelerate achieving our commitment to the Commonwealth. And we must start now.
What Is CATS AI?
- An initiative of our Advancing Kentucky Together Network, CATS AI is a hub and governance framework that catalyzes and coordinates AI activity across UK’s 17 colleges, libraries, research centers and institutes and academic health care system.
- New AI platforms, tools, resources and training will be accessible to all of our faculty, staff and students.
- Built on the work of a task force led by Provost Bob DiPaola and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Eric Monday, it convenes a platform for the many AI initiatives occurring now and in the future across our campus and organizes our stakeholders and resources for broad access and responsible adoption.
- Ian McClure (Vice President for Innovation, UK HealthCare) and Heath Price (Associate Vice President for Partnerships) will co-lead the initiative as Interim Directors. A national search for a permanent director will follow soon.
Opportunities Ahead
CATS AI will expand access, training and innovation.
- For employees: AI literacy, training and tools will empower every member of our community to enhance creativity and efficiency in their daily work.
- For students: AI-enabled tools, curated digital assistants, AI agent-builder sandboxes and hackathons, AI-focused courses and certificate programs will increase student support and access to innovation. It will also helpmake transfer paths more seamless and assist in navigating curricula. In addition, soon we will be announcing a first-ever AI-integrated residence hall. In most job markets today, a baseline of understanding and competence in these technologies is becoming a critical, if not expected skillset to succeed in a career pathway.
- For health care: Health care innovation can be dramatically enhanced, such as expanding ambient listening tools beyond current physician visit pilots, immersing AI-augmented experiences into the creation of a hospital room of the future and reimagining rural access to care in places that lack it in Kentucky.
- For research: CATS AI will help lead a potentially transformative opportunity to equip our researchers with powerful AI tools, fundamental and sophisticated training and connect them with industry and innovation leaders. Through internal competitions and an AI-focused external partners alliance, CATS AI will incentivize greater research collaboration, open pathways to funding for AI-driven discovery and expand access to digital scientific discovery platforms and computing infrastructure.
A steering committee of leaders will guide CATS AI.
Five subcommittees — Education, Research, Students, Health Care, and Administration and Workplace — will address specific needs and solicit area-focused ideas and proposals to the Leadership Council. As a broadly engaging and participatory structure, we are opening nominations to participate on these subcommittees via this online form.
- A university-wide strategic AI roadmap will be developed to expand access to AI tools, capabilities and partnerships.
- A CATS AI team will administer and project manage its initiatives, and support integration of training and partner resources.
Advancing Kentucky Together
CATS AI will operate under the Advancing Kentucky Together (AKT) Network, which connects UK with partners across the state and beyond to improve health, education and workforce development in Kentucky.
Six partners have already joined, with more on the way — including our first corporate partner to be announced shortly, who will help embed AI across campus and Kentucky.
They will make significant investments in us. And we will make significant investments in our people, making AI tools, training, classes and programs available to every employee and student at UK.
Read more about the AKT Network at this website.
Our Charge
Our Board of Trustees has challenged us to lead Kentucky in AI adoption — responsibly and inclusively. We must be the partner institution of choice in Kentucky for the use, adoption and responsible expansion of these tools and technologies for our state and her future.
It is a recognition that standing still or avoiding these technologies is not an answer, nor is ignoring the real and present challenges presented by AI and other technologies. Concerns about ethics, energy and the environment, biases and job displacements, are serious. They should be treated as such.
Here, too, a coordinated and truly collaborative initiative like CATS AI can position UK as a leader to thoughtfully address not just the incredible potential, but also the real risk that exists in these spaces.
That is what we must be positioned to do now. This is a point of inflection to lead — to respond to and cultivate the technologies and transitions that radically improve our work, communities and the economy.
This is our moment.
Just as our predecessors built institutions to meet the needs of a changing world, we must lead again — to ensure Kentucky not only keeps pace with change but helps shape it.
Eli Capilouto
President