Mini Series: Ep#6 Conversations in Higher Education with Gabe Akisanmi - EDUCAUSE 2025

Conversations in Higher Education explores the critical challenges and innovations shaping the future of colleges and universities through candid discussions with leaders on the front lines of transformation. In this episode, Gabe Akisanmi tackles the complex challenge of shadow AI in higher education, explaining how institutions can build trust by providing secure, governed AI tools that protect student data while delivering the same capabilities as public AI platforms.Welcome to Conversations in Higher Education! 🎓Recorded live at EDUCAUSE 2025 in Nashville, this episode features Gabe Akisanmi discussing one of the most pressing challenges in higher education today: shadow AI—when students and staff use ungoverned AI tools that put sensitive institutional data at risk.In this episode, Gabe discusses:✅ What shadow AI is and why it's a major trust challenge✅ How students inadvertently expose PII through public AI platforms✅ The importance of educating students on proper AI use✅ Building in-house AI capabilities with proper guardrails✅ Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) for institutional context✅ Why students need multiple AI sources to verify information✅ Preventing AI hallucinations through trust-but-verify approaches✅ Tools that scrub sensitive data before it reaches external AI✅ Amazon Bedrock and deploying AI within institutional control✅ Reducing friction to encourage use of governed AI tools✅ Balancing innovation speed with security, people, and process✅ Data governance as the foundation for responsible AI adoptionGabe provides practical insights on how CIOs can implement AI solutions that give students the capabilities they want while maintaining institutional security and compliance—ultimately building the trust that's essential for higher education's future.Recorded at EDUCAUSE 2025 in Nashville, TennesseeGuest: Gabe Akisanmi, Technology Leader in Higher EducationHost: Jon Myer, Rackspace Technology - Myer Media#HigherEducation #EdTech #EDUCAUSE #ArtificialIntelligence #ShadowAI #DataGovernance #StudentPrivacy #AIinEducation #TrustInEducation #CyberSecurity #RAGTimeline0:00 - Welcome & Introduction from EDUCAUSE 20250:28 - Top 10 Initiative #1: Restoring trust through AI governance0:36 - What is shadow AI and why is it a challenge?1:43 - Lack of standards vs. lack of education on AI use3:25 - The challenge of publicly available AI and personal devices5:30 - Why institutions must adopt AI quickly with proper guardrails6:20 - Building in-house AI with institutional context7:30 - Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) explained10:42 - Tools that scrub sensitive data from AI prompts11:56 - Student pain points: lack of AI awareness13:10 - The danger of accepting AI outputs as facts14:04 - Trust but verify: using multiple AI sources16:09 - Amazon Bedrock and institutional AI deployment18:11 - Reducing friction to encourage governed AI adoption19:08 - Balancing innovation with security and process22:19 - Bringing it back to trust and student data22:25 - Closing thoughts & thank you🔔 Don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and hit the notification 🔔 ✔ Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/jonmyer/?sub_confirmation=1📱 Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/_JonMyerWebsite: https://jonmyer.comLinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-myer/Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0wjJzdIwctq4o4pTXM2KSFLike my sounds? Here's my audio source: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/fj9o9k#aws #awscloud #podcast #podcasting #costoptimization #finops #cloudcost #cloudoptimization