Brown’s strategy combines accessible tooling, peer-driven knowledge sharing and robust governance to ensure AI adoption is practical, safe and effective. The work is led by the Finance and Administration AI Advisory Committee and shaped by direct engagement with more than 500 administrative and academic leaders across campus.
Artificial Intelligence at Brown
AI in Operations
Optimizing Operations at Every Level
The integration of AI into Brown operations takes place at the individual, department and campus-wide levels.
Individual Skill-Building
Brown’s approach centers on meeting staff wherever they are in their AI journey — from curious beginners to regular users. All staff members are invited to participate in the AI Community of Practice for Staff, which has more than 300 members and meets regularly throughout the year to discuss AI use across campus and share tools and insights.
Examples of skill-building opportunities for staff:
- Staff members who already are putting AI to work in their units lead “AI in Action” sessions to show colleagues how they might be able to leverage AI technology to simplify daily administrative tasks such as drafting communications, organizing data and formatting documents.
- AI capabilities have been introduced to several of the software programs staff use daily, including Google Workspace, where staff members can opt in to embedded features.
- Staff members are granted early access to test and experiment with emerging tools ahead of broad campus rollouts.
The University gathers continuous feedback from staff to ensure that institutional training, tool selection and operational support evolve alongside actual staff needs. Staff training also evolves as technology brings new opportunities.
Department-level Optimization
At the department level, staff teams across campus are using AI to rethink administrative processes, create standard operating procedures and redesign workflows to improve their quality of service. The AI and Business Enablement team in Brown’s Office of Information Technology is available to meet with units to identify useful AI tools and help staff members tailor these tools to their specific needs.
Campus Processes
AI is being leveraged to optimize and simplify processes that support the entire campus. For example, in April 2026, the University launched the first phase of a contract automation project, which substantially cut the time between contract submission and contract review. For new contracts, year-over-year processing time decreased by 77% in June 2026, 85% in July and 90% in August, now taking just one day.
Phase 2 of this work involves automating the rest of the contract review cycle. Both phases of the project were funded through an AI Optimization Grant, managed by Finance and Administration. Brown is engaged in ongoing campus-wide process automation and simplification.
Practical Campus Applications
The Finance and Administration division maintains a centralized “use case library” of real-world administrative and operational implementations submitted by colleagues across the University. Staff are applying AI tools to their work in numerous ways, including:
- Mapping workflows and drafting standard operating procedures
- Efficiently generating first drafts of announcements, reports and team updates
- Designing surveys, mining datasets and interpreting administrative metrics
- Creating presentation slides, infographics and instructional videos
- Accelerating peer institution research and market benchmarking
Getting Started: Three Questions for Every Team
To help units identify immediate opportunities for AI and automation, teams are encouraged to reflect on three simple questions:
- What core responsibilities make the biggest difference in your unit’s success?
- What daily tasks feel repetitive, manual or overly time-consuming (e.g., data entry, formatting, web research)?
- What high-impact projects do you wish you had more time to focus on, but often get pushed aside?