AI Competency Centre: 2025 in Review

2025 was a busy year for the AI Competency Centre team. Most notably was the rollout of ChatGPT Edu to all staff and students starting in September 2025, but that was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the activities of our staff.

Engagement

Over the course of the year, the Centre team hosted or exhibited at 13 different Oxford events, including the Oxford Digital Festival, Freshers’ Fair and hosting our own ‘Build-a-Bot’ hackathon with OpenAI. Through internal events alone, the Competency Centre team have reached an audience of over 14,000.

Last year also saw the launch of the AI Ambassador programme, which now involves over 160 staff from more than 90 departments and colleges. These are staff from across colleges and divisions, who are actively engaged with the Centre, benefitting from exclusive training from OpenAI and the Centre’s AI consultants, as well as a private community for sharing ideas and information. Last year we hosted 7 in-person events for the AI Ambassador community, with many more planned in 2026. If you would be interested in joining this network, you can find more information on our AI Ambassador webpage.

With the University-wide rollout of generative AI licences, the Centre has developed increasing engagement with students through partnerships with the Student Union presidents, our presence at Freshers’ Fair and running student focus groups, alongside our student-focused training sessions and speaking at the MCR Committee meeting in October.

Projects

July saw the conclusion of the AI in Teaching and Learning Exploratory Fund projects - a programme of 12 cross-divisional projects developed and run in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning. The outcomes of these projects were presented in an Oxford-wide knowledge exchange forum and three of these projects have been taken forward to be developed for wider release.

Our AI Consultants and Research Software Engineers have been involved in 98 projects and consultancies, with collaborators spanning all divisions and one college. The Centre also helped to fund small projects in Humanities and Medical Sciences. We have also been providing access to OpenAI's API platform to help researchers investigate the potential of Large Language Models in their research. For example, in November, we provided API access for a charity hackathon exploring how AI can be used responsibly to support early childhood.

Three different generative AI tools were piloted in 2025. From June, we ran a 6-month pilot of Gemini Pro for 240 staff from across the University. This concluded with a showcase event held in November, hosted in collaboration with Google, where colleagues heard how others around the collegiate University had successfully used Google’s AI tools.

The concurrent 12-month pilots of ChatGPT Edu and Microsoft 365 Copilot also came to an end last year. During the course of these pilots and to keep up with demand, we began to offer licences for both these tools more widely through departmental purchase. The feedback from these pilots fed into the University decision to offer ChatGPT Edu to all.

Following these pilots, the University now has five different GenAI licences available to staff and students:

• ChatGPT Edu - available for free to all current staff and students
• Google Gemini - available for free to all staff and students
• Google Gemini Pro - available for purchase via department or college
• Microsoft Copilot Chat - available for free to all staff and students
• Microsoft 365 Copilot - available for purchase via department or college

A new pilot of Cloudforce’s nebulaONE® platform will also begin in early 2026.

Training

We have been continuing an agile training programme, reactive to tech updates, available to all, free of charge, through in person and online modes. Whilst keeping up with this, the training team developed an additional ChatGPT training programme with introductions and next steps modules available from September with both live and pre-recorded sessions. This training series has received widespread positive feedback, with an average rating of 4.75/5.

Custom training, adapted to the audience and available on demand for groups, has been well received with 82 trainings delivered in 2025 on a variety of AI themes and tools. You can request one of these sessions through our Custom Workshop enquiry form.

Across the 2025 training programmes, over 7,500 delegates have attended 239 training sessions. This includes specialised sessions such as the ‘AI for Finance’ session hosted with OpenAI in July, bringing together finance colleagues from across the University to investigate how to use ChatGPT to improve workflows.

Team members have been presenting in a seminar series ran in collaboration with Kellogg College, aiming to boost understanding of developments in AI and build confidence in using emerging technologies. The developing partnership with the college is leading to more events planned for 2026, including our involvement in organising Bletchley Park week.

Governance

While the AI Competency Centre does not own or create policy, last year we helped to establish an AI Governance Group to align strategy on enabling tool features and guidance. The Centre also consulted on AI policies and best practice guidance across the University, including for use of AI in admissions and general guidance for students.

Over the year, we have worked closely with our external providers - OpenAI, Google and Microsoft - to make sure their commercial platforms offer benefit within the Oxford infrastructure. The team has been regularly feeding suggestions to OpenAI to develop their platform, with these suggestions being implemented at a global level, including the development of a workspace policy message showing upon initial login.

2025 was a milestone year for the AI Competency Centre and we only hope to build on our success in 2026. Watch this space.