On Monday, Nov. 3, 2025, OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, and Amazon Web Services announced a $38 billion deal between the artificial intelligence startup and the cloud infrastructure company.
This agreement could lead to improvements for ChatGPT users, such as quicker response times, fewer outages and an overall more efficient experience. The deal is an example of how artificial intelligence, or AI, continues to grow. According to the Digital Education Council, 86% of students use AI in their studies, 54% use it weekly and one in four use it daily.
At UT Martin, senior meteorology major Hayley Dorn spoke about her experiences with AI during her time in college.
“I don’t really like to use it because I feel it limits critical thinking,” Dorn said.
Dorn said professors encouraged her to learn to use AI because of its benefits, such as summarizing scientific research papers.
“One class says, ‘It’s allowed to be used for X, Y, Z,’ and another class says, ‘It is not permissible at all,’” Dorn said.
It can be hard to keep up with which classes allow AI, and Dorn is not the only student who feels this way. Janna Harrod, a UT Martin freshman finance student, agrees that it is important to look at the syllabus of each class. Harrod entered college with experience using AI, as she started utilizing it her senior year of high school.
“Reflecting on myself, I feel like I don’t struggle as much to try and come up with essay thoughts on my own when I know that there’s something there that can just go ahead and generate them for me,” Harrod said.
Dr. Adnan Rasool, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning and professor of political science, has investigated AI trends in education, especially at UT Martin. One of his main responsibilities is staying on top of trends in teaching. Rasool has found that not just at UT Martin, but across the country, the nature of students has changed.
“We used to teach a certain way about five or seven years ago. We cannot teach our students the same way because it is not the same student,” he said.
Rasool conducts workshops for faculty and helps them redesign their classes or entire courses to best suit students’ needs.
Through his research and experience as a professor, he has noticed a trend among students who are getting hurt by using AI in the wrong ways. Rasool explained that students who are at a C or D level—who in the past could have been boosted up a letter grade—are the ones who get hurt most by misusing AI.
“The kid who could have been a solid C is now inching toward a D because their level of effort has gone down to a point where I can’t do anything for them,” Rasool said.
When students copy and paste AI’s work, they don’t realize the quality of what they submit is extremely low, Rasool said. Students do not understand how effective AI can be for them, and he believes it will take a couple of years for students to begin to grasp that.
Rasool also spoke about the variety of AI tools available for students and staff to use.
“I would like nothing more than for our students to understand which tool at what time,” Rasool said.
Chancellor Yancy Freeman has been progressive about giving faculty access to advanced AI tools. All university faculty and staff have access to Gemini Pro, the full version of the AI program created by Google DeepMind.
When looking to the future of AI, Rasool said the ones who will be hurt the hardest are generalists.
“It’s not going to essentially replace people,” he said. “What’s going to happen is we’re going to require a lot less people to do these things.”
Rasool said it is important for students to specialize and think about the future of their desired profession as AI continues to grow.
