Students Get Using AI, But Do the Rest of Us?
Previously, when I had considered AI in the college union, depending on the day of the week, I would have had one of two reactions: Either rubbing my hands with glee, thinking about the possibility of future frictionless building operations, or worrying whether we are slowly hollowing out the soul of our organisations. And while I have had to wrestle with these positions, one thing is clear. The conversation regarding the future of AI on our campuses and in our organisations is here, whether we want it or not. Therefore, the question is now not whether to engage but how to engage in conversation on AI in ways that protect what makes college unions worth belonging to.
At Arts Students’ Union, we spent much of the past year trying to answer that question honestly. What we found challenged our assumptions in ways every union professional needs to hear.
We First Asked Our Students …
Before we built our policy, we did our research. Our report “Art or Algorithm?,” published in March 2025, brought together in-depth qualitative focus groups with students. We wanted to understand not only whether they were using AI but also how they felt about it: its role in their lives, their professional futures, and their sense of identity as students.
I would encourage every student affairs professional to do something similar with their staff and students. The answers will not necessarily be the same; every campus community is different. But asking can change the conversation, and what emerged for us was unexpected and has since echoed beyond our own institution.
Our key assumption was that Gen Z students and staff would be enthusiastic advocates for greater AI usage, as they are termed “digital natives.” But we found that some of the most thoughtful, principled, and sometimes vehement resistance to AI came from this generation. Their objections were not about AI itself. They cared about authenticity, sustainability, community, and what gets lost when human contact is replaced by automated efficiency.
The Life Raft Problem
It is important for us to know the landscape which our students are facing. For example, Jo Irving-Walton of Teesside University, writing in Wonkhe, provided an important reframe: she pointed out that data suggests many students in the UK are balancing nearly 50 hours a week between study, travel, and paid work. In this context, a tool that reduces friction is not a shortcut; it makes competing priorities feel manageable. It feels like a life raft.
So, how is AI a life raft for our students? They do not attend our events or spaces from a place of comfort. Many are stretched and time-poor compared to earlier generations. If AI is a life raft in their studies, we can expect students to expect the same from union activities. The question is whether we help them use it well or leave them to figure it out on their own.
What Students Are Actually Telling Us
The most useful finding from our research was not what students did with AI, but where they drew the line and why. Across our focus groups, students primarily used AI to narrow their information, draft initial emails, and generate response options. But consistently, they drew a line at AI taking the place of human interactions.
“In a field like fine art, the ideas… that’s the most fun bit. If it’s not personal to you, it feels hollow.”
— BA Fine Art student, Art or Algorithm? (Arts SU, 2025)
If you apply this to the college union, the implications are striking. Students can tell when an email is written by someone who knows them and when it is generated by a system. They notice whether a social media post has a genuine organisational voice or is merely content for content’s sake. They can tell if the person supporting them in a well-being conversation is present and human or just reading from a script.
This is not just our generalisation. A large-scale study of over 8,000 students across Australian universities, discussed recently in Wonkhe by Mack Marshall and Jim Dickinson, supports it. That research found that students had developed their own ethical AI frameworks, more subtle than anything their institutions had formally explained. They drew careful distinctions between AI as structural support and AI as a substitute for real engagement. One called their principle “augmentation, not replacement.” Another said using AI for non-technical tasks would make her feel like “a fraud or a robot.”
For college unions, AI is a community issue. Students across the globe are telling us that the human element of our work is not optional; it is the core.
Where AI Can Genuinely Help Us
This article is not an argument against AI in college unions. Arts SU’s research showed clearly where AI adds value, with lessons directly relevant to college union professionals.
Our students were most enthusiastic about AI for early, high-volume tasks. One called it a “brainstorming partner,” another used it to narrow choices before deeper work.
Union professionals should see where this applies to our work. AI can help with event planning, drafting communications, creating first-draft risk assessments, and organising operational scaffolding around student work. Our skill is knowing when to hand back to the human.
Arts SU’s research found a simple pattern: AI in the background, people in the foreground. This is a workable model for union operations and mirrors our policy’s line between AI assistance and tasks AI must never replace.
The Lines We Drew, and Why
Our AI Use Policy at Arts SU sets clear limits, ensuring that humans remain in the foreground. AI must not handle member complaints, welfare concerns, or situations where a student is vulnerable or needs genuine human support. It must not generate advocacy, student campaigns, or communications in the student voice.
We also introduced three non-negotiable tests for our staff team. Before any AI-assisted output is used, the person responsible must answer:
- Would I stand by this if AI didn’t exist?
- Could I explain it clearly without saying “the AI said so”?
- Am I willing to be personally accountable for its impact?
These are not bureaucratic hurdles. They are questions good student affairs professionals already ask. AI adoption only makes them more urgent.
A Call
The State of the College Union series helps us to ask what kind of professionals we want to be in an AI age. Our experience at Arts SU and broader evidence suggests the answer is not technical but relational.
I believe that those who will be best placed to navigate this changing landscape are those who are considering now that human engagement is not just preferable but irreplaceable. Student development cannot be automated. Community cannot be generated. The mentoring conversation, the leadership moment, the emergency debrief after an event that didn’t go to plan, these are what we are here for, and no tool changes that.
ACUI’s newly formed AI Task Force demonstrates that our association is ready to address this collectively. It will help us all move forward together in this new landscape, leaving no member behind and ensuring these conversations happen at scale.
Our policy at Arts SU ends with: “AI can support how we work, but responsibility, judgement, and creativity always stay with us.” I offer it to colleagues across ACUI as a starting point rather than a conclusion. Our students already understand the importance of AI conversations. They are watching to see whether we do too.
