WarriorGPT brings AI into the classroom — on faculty terms

As generative artificial intelligence reshapes higher education, Wayne State University is taking a deliberate, faculty-first approach, bringing AI into the classroom in a way that prioritizes privacy, access and instructional control.

Launched in early 2025 following a pilot, WarriorGPT was developed by Computing & Information Technology (C&IT) to allow faculty to integrate AI directly into their Canvas courses - but only when and how they choose. Rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all external tool, C&IT built WarriorGPT with Wayne State in mind, offering a secure, university-supported environment to engage and experiment with AI as part of teaching and learning.

"When ChatGPT came out, there was immediate demand across campus," said Curtis Kratt, senior director of service management in C&IT who helped lead the project. "But the question was how to provide access in a way that protects data and supports the classroom - we wanted to address that on our own terms."

A measured response to a fast-moving technology

WarriorGPT began as a pilot in fall 2024 and officially launched in winter 2025, following months of development by a small internal team responding to both interest and concern around generative AI. WarriorGPT has seen sustained adoption, and at its peak usage, was offered in 69 courses during the fall 2025 semester, serving nearly 3,000 students.

The platform was designed to address a central challenge facing universities: how to provide access to powerful AI tools without exposing sensitive data to external systems. Unlike commercial platforms - like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude - WarriorGPT operates entirely within Wayne State's infrastructure and does not retain user conversations or use them to train models. Sessions reset when closed, and activity is not tracked - a design that encourages experimentation while protecting privacy. Additionally, WarriorGPT helps reduce cost barriers and the digital divide, giving all students access to advanced AI tools they might not otherwise be able to afford or run on personal devices.

By embedding the tool directly in Canvas, C&IT positioned WarriorGPT within the natural flow of courses. When enabled by an instructor, it appears as a course tool available to enrolled students for that semester. These decisions were shaped in part by faculty governance and align with Wayne State's AI guidelines.

"We were surprised by how many faculty were eager to jump right in," said Adam Perkins, lead systems integrator, who was the primary developer and architect for WarriorGPT. "We're proud that our platform offers a level of governance that vendors cannot match, and that it's being used to experiment, innovate and improve. You can integrate AI and still maintain the integrity of the learning environment."

Teaching with AI

Across disciplines, faculty are incorporating WarriorGPT in ways that enhance teaching and learning. Students have used the tool to support analytic writing and revision, generate and evaluate code, build rubrics, develop discussion prompts, and more.

Dr. Martha Schiller, assistant professor and director of clinical education for the physical therapy program in the Department of Health Care Sciences, has used WarriorGPT since its pilot phase. She initially incorporated it into a discussion board assignment and later expanded its use in an evidence-based practice exercise, where students answer a clinical question and compare their response with one generated by the tool.

She said the approach helps students verify accuracy, cross-reference sources and think critically, while reinforcing the importance of human judgment and compassion in clinical care.

"I aim to teach students that AI can be a supplementary tool. It will never replace a clinician's role, but it can benefit providers and patients alike," she said. "I see it as our role to prepare students for reality, and AI is part of that reality. Our health care environment is complex and evolving, and students need to learn to be adaptive."

Innovating with efficiency

WarriorGPT reflects Wayne State's broader culture of solving institutional challenges with targeted, practical solutions. Developed by a small team led by Kratt, Perkins and Associate Director of Business Analysis John McBride, the platform combines open-source AI models with a custom-built interface tailored to the university's needs and was built with efficiency and sustainability in mind.

Hosted on campus, the system runs on WSU's servers with four H200 graphics processing units (GPUs), delivering strong performance while leveraging existing infrastructure. By avoiding reliance on large external data centers, the university reduces both costs and environmental impact.

"This kind of local deployment is the most ethical and practical, by far," said Perkins. "In creating WarriorGPT from pre-existing open-weight models, we have the best of both worlds. We have the power of those tools, but the benefit of complete privacy and control without pay-per-use models or vendor constraints."

Building the university's own platform also allowed the team to incorporate guardrails that keep the tool focused and effective.

"AI is kind of like an overly eager intern - it's pre-wired to give you an answer no matter what, and it often answers as it thinks you want it to," said McBride. "With tailored system prompts, we were able to shape that behavior and are finding it to be very capable, with consistently good results."

Looking ahead

As faculty continue refining how they use WarriorGPT, C&IT is exploring additional applications across campus, aligned with the Division of Digital Strategy and Operational Excellence's university-wide initiative to improve how everyday work gets done and streamline processes.

To date, C&IT has worked with campus partners to use the platform to review and categorize resumes, draft metadata within the university's content management system, and catalog equipment - among other use cases.

As AI continues to rapidly evolve, WarriorGPT remains a work in progress - intentionally.

"We're always testing what WarriorGPT can do, and are open to all collaborations and questions," Kratt said. "It's about understanding where AI fits and where it adds value for our institutional goals."