Kentucky higher education leaders want every college student in the state, not just computer science majors, to graduate knowing how to use artificial intelligence. The push comes from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education's newly formed Task Force on AI, Higher Education, and the Workforce, which is pressing the case that AI proficiency belongs in every discipline, from nursing to philosophy, rather than staying boxed in as a tech-department specialty.
Jordan Harris, a task force member and client relationship executive for Deloitte Consulting, put it bluntly: treating AI as only a computer science issue would be a major institutional mistake, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Harris, who previously served as a senior policy advisor to Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, argued that AI proficiency, not just basic literacy, should be the actual goal, and that this expectation should apply across all majors. Deloitte Consulting already provides large-scale support to the University of Kentucky's operations, technology and strategic projects, giving Harris a direct line into how the university is approaching the shift.
The task force, launched in July 2026 to build a statewide understanding of AI's effect on postsecondary teaching and workforce needs, includes representatives from Kentucky's higher education, hospital, business and engineering sectors. Members say university students should be expected to graduate with more than a basic understanding of automating research and problem-solving, since every academic discipline will ultimately be touched by the technology.
A Faculty Playing Catch-Up
Not everyone on campus is moving at the same pace. Jeff Guan, a task force member and the University of Louisville's executive director for AI strategy and innovation, said faculty and staff are behind students in understanding AI. Guan also said the University of Louisville cannot keep up with its own AI guidelines, a gap that mirrors national survey findings on the disconnect between student use and institutional rules.
That disconnect shows up nationally too. A Lumina Foundation-Gallup study published in April 2026 found that 57% of U.S. college students use AI in their coursework at least weekly, and about one in five use it daily, according to Gallup. Yet the same survey, covering nearly 3,800 associate and bachelor's degree students nationwide, found 53% of students said their institution either discourages or prohibits AI use in coursework, while 52% said their classes simply lacked clear AI policies. Roughly 42% reported AI was discouraged in their courses, while 11% reported an outright ban, per the Lumina Foundation.
The stakes for students go beyond classroom rules. The same Lumina-Gallup research found that 16% of enrolled U.S. college students had already changed their major because of AI's anticipated impact on the workforce, while nearly half had considered altering their course of study, according to Axios. Associate degree students changed majors at a higher rate than bachelor's degree students, 19% versus 13%, the same report found.
UK's Model: One Course, Every Major
The University of Kentucky has already built out infrastructure meant to answer that gap. In November 2025, UK launched TEK 100: Collaborative Intelligence — Understanding and Using Modern AI, a one-credit-hour online course co-created by statistics associate professor Katherine Thompson and medical emergency assistant professor Dr. Tama Thé, designed as the university's first foundational AI course open to students regardless of major, according to UKNow.
UK has paired that course with the Commonwealth AI Transdisciplinary Strategy, known as CATS AI, established following a Board of Trustees directive and built in partnership with Microsoft and Phygital Labs to deliver campuswide AI training. The university uses CATS AI to automate aspects of classroom learning modules and to transcribe appointments between patients and doctors in UK Healthcare, per the same UKNow report. That framework sits inside UK's broader TEK, or Transdisciplinary Educational approaches to advance Kentucky, initiative, launched in 2023 as part of the university's regional accreditation process and engaging 73 faculty across 15 colleges by mid-2025, according to Eastern Kentucky University research.
Money, Timelines and What's Not Yet on the Table
The task force plans to roll out AI priorities over the next three to five years and intends to recommend those priorities to the Kentucky General Assembly, seeking grants and other financial resources along the way. Those resources would go toward equipping university employees with more AI training and programs, addressing the faculty gap Guan described.
Travis Powell, the council's executive vice president and general counsel for government relations and operations, said any major AI moves should take available resources into account. Rolf Provan, a task force member and president and CEO of Louisville-based Luckett-Farley, which has projects at both the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, questioned where Kentucky will ultimately land on AI policy.
Notably, the task force has not yet discussed potential job losses tied to AI, even as cited research indicates a small number of jobs have already been cut as a result of the technology. The group has also not discussed the negative environmental impacts of AI, even though AI systems rely on data centers that consume electricity, water and other intensive resources for hardware manufacturing.
Kentucky's Broader AI Framework
The higher education task force isn't operating in isolation. During its 2025 session, the Kentucky General Assembly passed Senate Bill 4 following the work of a separate legislative AI task force, establishing the state's first statutory definitions for artificial intelligence and directing the Commonwealth Office of Technology to oversee state agency adoption, according to the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. That same legislative task force submitted 10 policy recommendations late in 2025 covering AI in classrooms, data privacy, workforce training and data center energy demands.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, its latest figures draw from the Fall 2025 collection.
Underlying all of it is Kentucky's statewide credential goal: the Council on Postsecondary Education operates under a strategic target of having 60% of working-age Kentuckians hold a postsecondary credential by 2030, a benchmark the state established to boost its economic competitiveness. According to the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, the state's broader attainment goal is for 60% of Kentucky residents to hold a postsecondary credential by 2030. A January 24, 2023 agenda from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education said the state was unlikely to reach its 2030 attainment goal by focusing on Kentucky residents alone. The AI task force's next public meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. on October 12, and it will be livestreamed on CPE's YouTube channel.
