CSU CIO Ed Clark explained. We were [also] seeing that some universities in our own system were starting to negotiate deals with these vendors, but then others couldn't afford to do that. So, we're thinking: “We're not going to create a digital divide within our own system. We're going to make sure that everybody has access to these tools.” And we buttress that with: We believe that these tools are going to become fundamental, just like the internet is today — every industry, every academic field, every discipline is going to be using these tools. So, we need our students, our community members, to engage with them now. We're not going to wait until we're far behind everybody else ... to give this access. And on the workforce side, in terms of student preparation, we already know that employers are expecting students to graduate with [AI] skills. ... We want our students to be prepared for the workforce or graduate school or whatever they're going to do when they leave the CSU.
