We’re about to embark on a second year of the AI Futurists initiative.
Since June 2024, the five embedded AI Futurists have been devising ways to further Imperial’s AI capabilities in the education space. This work began with uncovering activities related to GenAI in Education within the AI Futurists’ local faculties and departments, exploring opportunities to connect people to share practice and join up. Each of the AI Futurists have responsibilities and interests within their ‘day jobs’ related to genAI. These range from identifying training gaps and designing learning to fill these to collaboratively developing and deploying AI tools to assist with learning and teaching across taught courses.
In my role as Lead AI Futurist, I am tasked with facilitating the work of the group, prioritising and developing ideas for streams of work. I horizon scan to develop our awareness of HE sector initiatives related to genAI broadly. This work aligns well with my role as Senior Teaching Fellow for Library Services, where I work with library teams to deploy learning across taught courses at Imperial using our bespoke Information and Digital Literacy framework, which we collaboratively amended in 2024 to address genAI across areas of competencies for students.
Our approach to being AI Futurists has been, first and foremost, rooted in curiosity. We have taken the stance of asking questions first, rather than being quick to provide answers. In the past year we have learned as we’ve gone along, taking care to harness our enthusiasm into planning. Addressing the fervour around generative AI has at times felt like a Sisyphean task, with new tools and use cases and emerging weekly to sift through, along with a scary raft of ethical challenges.
Among other things, in the past year we’ve developed a Special Interest Group, delivered two cross-faculty AI hackathons, deployed the Business School Faculty Bot, and soon will launch a staff-facing Introduction to Generative AI at Imperial course. We’ve established relationships with stakeholders and friends to align AI initiatives with staff and student needs, including the EDU, ICT, Centre for Academic English, and internal comms teams.
We had the opportunity to contribute a panel discussion at the Imperial Festival of Learning and Teaching, where, along with three student panelists, we considered and debated whether genAI is a sustainable partner, and what a sustainable future for generative AI in education might look like.
We’ve only begun to scratch the surface as regards AI and a wide range of associated ethical concerns. I consider this piece to underpin everything as we engage further with the tools and companies that produce and supply them. In recent weeks in the media, we’ve seen deeply troubling instances of generative AI being used by young people for mental health support, for example, and have become aware of a new level of the disturbing potential for AI-generated harm.
We’ve taken the responsibility of being AI Futurists to heart. To that end, we’ve had worthwhile and perplexing discussions about what it means to be true ‘Futurists’ while still needing to address existing needs and fill gaps.
Our priorities for the coming year include:
• Strategic AI curriculum development beyond immediate course-level changes
• Dedicated research time to assess AI’s pedagogical impact
• Broader faculty engagement, enabling proactive rather than reactive AI strategy development
• Prioritising student collaboration, for example, convening a student-focused forum to discuss their perspectives on generative AI’s impact on learning – in collaboration with ICU
• Experimental tool development in teaching, learning and assessment
• Explorations around the societal impact of genAI, which we expect will be cross-disciplinary with the Social Sciences and Humanities
We fully expect these aims to evolve and be subject to the influence of the perpetually moving target that is genAI in education.
Hall, Rachel. (2025) ‘Sliding into an abyss’: Experts warn over rising use of AI for mental health support. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/30/therapists-warn-ai-chatbots-mental-health-support (Accessed: 2 September 2025).
Imperial College Library Services. (2025) Information and digital literacy. Available at: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/learning-support/information-and-digital-literacy–/ (Accessed: 2 September 2025).
Papageorgiou, V. (2025) Conceptualising and envisioning the ‘sustainable teacher’ within the contemporary university. Society for Research into Higher Education. Available at: https://srhe.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Papageorgiou_NRreport.pdf (Accessed: 1 September 2025).
Peck, E., McCarthy, B. and Shaw, J. (2025) The future of the campus university: 10 trends that will change higher education. HEPI Policy Note 64. Oxford: Higher Education Policy Institute. Available at: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-future-of-the-campus-university.pdf (Accessed: 1 September 2025).