UNSW signs ChatGPT deal with OpenAI in Australian first agreement for all-staff access
A NSW university has become the nation’s first to ink an ongoing deal with OpenAI, granting up to 10,000 staff unlimited access to ChatGPT. Here’s how they’ll use it.
UNSW has become the first Australian university to ink an ongoing deal with artificial intelligence software giant OpenAI, granting up to 10,000 permanent employees unlimited access to ChatGPT.
The license agreement allows academics, researchers, educators and professional staff to use a closed-network version of the platform called ‘ChatGPT Edu’, which cannot be used to train the AI model in order to protect intellectual property.
The platform was trialled over a 10-month period with 800 staff and more than 100 students in the UNSW Business School, and was considered a resounding success with 98 per cent of trial participants requesting ongoing access.
UNSW Vice Chancellor Attila Brungs announced the deal to staff and students at an AI Symposium at the university on Tuesday, describing ChatGPT as a “practical tool” for staff.
“As we introduce these technologies, our focus is on helping staff explore how AI can add value in teaching, research and operations, while maintaining the highest standards of ethics, privacy and academic integrity,” he said.
It comes as universities across the country and around the world face increasing demand from employers to teach their students AI skills, while higher education experts and student groups express concerns about how AI will impact the value of their degrees.
Institutions continue to grapple, too, with the heightened risk of academic misconduct that AI tools introduce. UNSW itself has reported incidents of AI misuse more than tripled last year.
Nearly a third of all substantiated cases of plagiarism involved the unauthorised use of generative AI at UNSW in 2024.
UNSW Business School Senior Deputy Dean Paul Andon, who oversaw the ChatGPT Edu trial, said universities “may not have all the precise answers” on when AI should be integrated in the classroom, but employers are “overwhelmingly” seeking those skills from graduates.
“We can talk about people who are trying to use it to get ahead in the ways that we are not desiring, but I think equally you see examples of where students are using it in desirable ways,” he said.
“That includes them using it to help them understand and digest materials more comprehensively, to … practising what it is they’re doing, or to explore further in more detail the sorts of things they’re trying to learn.”
ChatGPT licenses for staff are “just a stage in the process” he said, foreshadowing students would also gain enterprise-level access “in time”.
Masters of Commerce students Michelle Chen, 26, and Manas Shukla, 27, both participated in the trial, using the software as a job interview chatbot, a personal tutor to review lecture content and to scaffold assessment task responses.
While Mr Shukla was enthusiastic about the potential for all students to eventually have access to the program – ChatGPT is “much stronger” than Microsoft Copilot, the other AI companion students have access to, he said – Ms Chen was more cautious.
“It would probably need some limitations on it, because you can’t always make sure that all students are very responsible, and they’re not tempted to basically use ChatGPT for everything,” she said.
“If the university is to grant access to all students the right to use AI, then the staff (are) going to have to pay much more attention to tell if (student work) is original.”
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Originally published as UNSW signs ChatGPT deal with OpenAI in Australian first agreement for all-staff access
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