What Faculty Want: Key Results from the Global AI Faculty Survey 2025

The Digital Education Council (DEC) Global AI Faculty Survey has just been released publicly. 1,681 faculty members at 52 higher education institutions from 28 countries responded in one of the most comprehensive surveys of its kind in the world.

This Survey follows on from the highly-cited DEC Global AI Student Survey published in August 2024.

‍Faculty Concerns

The survey revealed widespread concerns about students' ability to critically evaluate AI-generated outputs, with 83% of faculty members expressing concern.

At the same time, 40% of faculty feel that they are just beginning their AI literacy journey and only 17% are at advanced or expert level. 80% of faculty feel there is a lack of clarity on how AI can be applied in teaching within their institutions.

Faculty with higher AI proficiency perceive greater transformative change that  AI will bring to their role as instructors and to student assessment, but see AI as less of a threat to their jobs than faculty with lower AI proficiency.

‍Change is Coming

64% of global faculty believe that AI will bring significant transformative change to the roles of instructors.

86% of faculty see themselves using AI in teaching in the future. Yet, sentiment remains divided, with 65% viewing AI as an opportunity and 35% perceiving it as a challenge. Faculty in the USA and Canada are more likely to see AI as a challenge.

When considering AI’s broader impact on higher education, sentiment remains divided – while 57% view it positively, 13%  perceive it negatively, and 30% remain neutral, indicating uncertainty among faculty.

“The data are clear:  faculty want to use AI, but the lack of training and institutional clarity is holding them back,” says Alessandro Di Lullo, CEO of the Digital Education Council and Academic Fellow in AI Governance at The University of Hong Kong. At the same time, “Both institutions and individuals must act now to embrace AI literacy, or risk leaving educators and students unprepared for the future”, he adds.

‍Assessment No Longer Adequate

Over half of faculty (54%) believe current student evaluation methods are no longer adequate in the age of AI, with 13%  calling for an urgent, complete revamp.

Reflecting these concerns, 81% of faculty ranked facilitating students’ critical thinking and learning as the most essential skill for educators in the digital age.

‍Barriers

Institutional AI governance practices remain a barrier, as only 4% of faculty are fully aware of their institutional AI guidelines and feel they are fully comprehensive.  Just 6%  fully agree that their institutions have provided sufficient resources to train faculty’s AI literacy.

This could hinder faculty’s confidence in working with AI and dissuade them from exploring possible AI integrations and uses in their teaching.

To address these gaps, the survey identified three key enablers for successful AI integration:

• Access to AI tools and resources
• Faculty training on AI literacy and skills
• Best practices and use cases for AI integration

The integration of AI in education is rapidly becoming a necessity and universities must take proactive steps to establish clear guidelines and provide adequate support for faculty. Addressing faculty concerns and enhancing AI literacy will be critical to ensuring effective and sustainable AI adoption in higher education.

Daniel Bielik, President of the Digital Education Council, says: “AI is a rapidly-evolving area for the world of higher education and we see information, such as our surveys, as opportunities to understand exactly where to put good processes.

“As AI technologies improve and become ubiquitous, institutions will need to undertake considerable reform. We encourage DEC member institutions to utilise our extensive resources including our AI Governance Framework to act as enablers. We will also soon provide considerable training resources that will be available globally.”

‍Digital Education Council Global AI Faculty Survey 2025 available here.