Georgetown Interim President Robert Groves announced that the university will “introduce generative AI tools to our community” in an email sent to students Monday morning. Georgetown will begin offering Gemini, Google’s AI assistant, to students, faculty, and staff beginning in March.
“Since 2022, Georgetown has been engaged in multiple efforts to understand the possibilities offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). New courses, pedagogy initiatives, and faculty-led discussions have prepared our next step: providing our community with direct access to generative AI to support research, pedagogy, and administrative work,” Groves wrote.
The use of artificial intelligence in higher education has been a source of controversy and debate over the past several years, with many sounding the alarm about its impacts on student learning and the potential for plagiarism. Ninety percent of U.S. college students say they have used AI for academic purposes, according to Forbes, but in a Jan. 2026 survey, nine in 10 professors said they believe use of AI will diminish students’ critical thinking. Others, however, say that AI can be a valuable tool for students.
Beyond just higher education, others have railed against AI usage due to its environmental impacts that disproportionately affect minorities, its racial biases, and its potential for sexual exploitation.
Groves wrote in the email that the university is “introducing important safeguards that prevent Georgetown data and the intellectual property of our faculty, students, and staff from being used to train AI models.” They did not specify specific measures. There are ways to disable human review of your Google Gemini chat history to “improve” the program, though it is unclear if this also removes a user’s data from being fed into non-human led improvement algorithms.
Groves wrote that faculty still retain full control over how AI is used in their classrooms, and students should follow guidance from their professors and their syllabi.
In the email, Groves also referenced Pope Leo XIV’s recent comments about the “stakes of our engagement and the importance of preserving human ingenuity and creativity” with artificial intelligence. The pope’s comments were largely wary of the impact of AI usage.
“How can we ensure that the development of artificial intelligence truly serves the common good, and is not just used to accumulate wealth and power in the hands of a few?” the pope said at a Dec. 2025 conference on AI usage at Catholic universities. “ The well-being of society depends on their ability to develop their talents and respond to the demands of the times and the needs of others, with generosity and freedom of mind.”
