Vanderbilt University announced the availability of ChatGPT Edu, Amplify 2.0 and Grow with Google to all eligible faculty, students and staff. The offerings are the latest in a multi-tool strategy in which the Provost’s Office, VUIT and the College of Connected Computing’s new Amplify GenAI Innovation (AGI) Center are collaborating to further integrate AI tools and training into university operations.
“As generative AI becomes part of everyday academic and professional work, Vanderbilt is taking a deliberate, multi-tool approach—ensuring our community has access to the right technologies to support creativity, discovery, and impact across the university,” Provost C. Cybele Raver said. “Through partnerships with OpenAI and Google, and in close collaboration with our colleagues in the College of Connected Computing, we’re expanding secure, cutting-edge AI tools so faculty, students and staff can use AI thoughtfully and effectively in the wide range of work they do every day.”
The new offerings are available at no cost to faculty, students and staff with a vanderbilt.edu email address, and they join a growing list of available tools. The Office of Learning Innovation is providing workshops, quick guides and an AI Faculty Toolkit to help everyone at the university maximize these tools. These supports are designed to foster innovative, ethical and secure AI use. OLI, VUIT, University Libraries and AGI Center will collaboratively support this initiative.
A GenAI Tool for Every Application
Generative AI adoption at Vanderbilt is widespread—more than 70 percent of the campus community uses these tools regularly. To meet this demand, Vanderbilt consistently expands enterprise support for a range of flexible and equitable AI solutions.
“Though Vanderbilt was an early leader in generative AI, we are only beginning to unlock the full potential of this technology on campus” said Jules White, senior advisor to the chancellor on generative AI in enterprise and education and professor of computer science. “With these new offerings, we’re driving innovation through a radically collaborative network of tools and resources that span everything from basic prompts to custom integrations that actively work alongside you.”
ChatGPT Edu, a university-specific deployment of the world’s most popular LLM, provides users with a secure, generalist platform for a wide range of tasks. Its rollout is the result of months of collaboration between Vanderbilt’s Office of Learning Innovation, VUIT and OpenAI to design an implementation that allows enterprise access to ChatGPT’s familiar desktop and mobile interfaces without cost to the end user or compromising the university’s stringent data security standards.
Amplify 2.0, announced last week by the AGI Center, represents a major evolution of Vanderbilt’s own secure generative AI tool. Since its introduction in November 2024, Amplify has provided a slate of popular and customized LLM models to the community within a secure sandbox for sensitive research. The platform fills a unique need for university researchers and has been adopted by more than 50 universities and institutions across the country.
In addition to its menu of a dozen LLM models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Nova and Mistral, Amplify 2.0 introduces powerful, open-source tools for deep research, scholarship and customized applications, including:
- personal AI email assistant
- scheduling agent
- intelligent note-taker
- custom chatbots
Amplify 2.0 is rolling out during January and February to everyone with an Amplify account, and users will be upgraded automatically.
Increasing AI Literacy and Engagement
Grow with Google, a partnership between Coursera and the search giant, provides the Vanderbilt community with Google-designed certificates and specializations in a range of AI-driven disciplines, including analytics, project management, UX design, cybersecurity, digital marketing and IT support. Grow with Google will increase AI literacy on campus and expand on Vanderbilt’s wildly popular Coursera AI programming, which boasts over 10 million enrollments to date.
“Vanderbilt’s partnership with Coursera has fueled generative AI use on campus and introduced the Vanderbilt brand to millions of people worldwide,” said Mallika Vinekar, assistant provost and executive director of the Office of Learning Innovation. “Grow with Google builds on this partnership to power targeted workforce training in a range of competitive fields, and I’m excited to share these certifications and specializations with our community.”
These tools and resources follow last year’s campus-wide implementation of Microsoft Copilot, an integrated assistant that streamlines, edits and enhances everyday work within the Microsoft 365 suite of applications.
While these GenAI tools are available to the entire campus, many specialized tools and resources are also available to select groups within the community. VUIT has curated a comparison chart of all available, campus-supported AI tools to inform the community on the strengths, weaknesses and best practices for each. And Vanderbilt’s Office of Learning Innovation is hosting a series of trainings and workshops to support generative AI in the Spring 2026 semester.
Activate Your Accounts
Vanderbilt’s Generative AI website to learn how, get support and access a number of resources, including an AI Tool Comparison Chart and the Faculty AI Toolkit, and to register for training opportunities.
