The future of Australia’s workforce is taking shape before today’s students receive their degrees. Across university campuses, students are using AI to investigate ideas, build assistants and turn concepts into working prototypes. They are beginning to develop the skills they will take into research, established industries and ventures of their own.
Recognising this shift, Australian universities, including UNSW Sydney, University of Sydney, La Trobe University, and Adelaide University are forging collaborations with OpenAI to give their students and staff access to frontier AI tools.
Students, educators and IT teams are putting AI to work in clinical simulations, robot-assisted teacher training and student projects that build pathways into industry. Alongside this work, universities are developing frameworks for where and how AI can be used in learning and assessment, helping students build practical skills while knowing when to rely on their own judgment. For teachers, employers and industry practitioners, these examples offer practical lessons in designing AI-supported learning, setting clear expectations for AI use and preparing Australians for an AI-enabled workplace.
New research_*_ commissioned by OpenAI reveals what students want from their universities, including the access to AI they increasingly expect. In a survey of more than 1,000 Australian university students, 81% said they already use AI several times a week, including more than a third (33%) who use it multiple times a day. Over a quarter (28%) had already built an AI agent or assistant to help manage their studies, work or personal life. Four out of five students (79%) want their university to offer more opportunities to use advanced AI tools on real-world projects, with the same proportion interested in applying AI to challenges in health, climate, science or cyber security.
AI use and career readiness
81%
Use AI several times a week
33%
Use AI multiple times each day
28%
Have already built an AI agent or assistant to manage studies, work or personal life
61%
Believe AI skills will be essential to success in their chosen career
69%
Believe AI literacy will become as fundamental as digital literacy, writing or numeracy
65%
Believe AI skills will give Australian graduates an advantage in the global workforce
Findings from a survey of university students in Australia*
Students also see those experiences as preparation for what comes next. More than sixty percent (61%) believe AI skills will be essential to success in their chosen career, and 65% believe those skills will give Australian graduates an advantage in the global workforce. There is entrepreneurial ambition, too. More than three quarters (76%) of students surveyed said they were interested in starting a company or working for themselves, while over two thirds (68%) believed AI would make it easier to start a business.
The question for higher education is how to meet students where they are. Giving them access to advanced tools is a start but helping them use those tools with sound judgment, subject knowledge and practical experience is what will make them AI-ready for the workforce.
UNSW’s expanded collaboration with OpenAI is one way universities are responding. The university is bringing ChatGPT Edu to more than 80,000 students and staff, expanding access in stages as it works towards availability across the student community.
UNSW and OpenAI plan to integrate generative AI foundations and Codex into educational programs and courses, with opportunities for students to apply AI through hackathons and industry projects. The collaboration is also intended to connect students with internships, graduate roles and startup networks.
UNSW Master of IT student Nalin Iyer put the workforce question plainly: “It’s important to understand what industry is looking for and how AI fits into that.”
The University of Sydney’s collaboration with OpenAI also aims to build practical capability across the institution. It will provide students and staff with supported access to ChatGPT Edu, with training and guidance. The rollout is staged, with access for all students scheduled for Semester 1, 2027 after a trial. The university is also establishing a $1 million AI Sustainability Research and Innovation Fund to study and advance sustainability.
Representatives from the University of Sydney and OpenAI mark the start of their strategic collaboration
La Trobe University is connecting broad access with an ambition to embed AI across its curriculum. All 3,500 staff already have access to ChatGPT Edu, with universal access planned for its 45,000 students and staff in the first quarter of 2027. Its approach includes Australia’s first Bachelor of AI Engineering (Honours), welcoming its first cohort in 2027, and Australia’s first AI MBA program.
As part of its AI-first strategy, La Trobe appointed Australia’s first Pro Vice-Chancellor AI and Chief AI Officer, Phil Laufenberg, to lead the university’s approach to AI across education, research and operations.
These efforts respond to a reality the survey makes clear: students are already experimenting with AI, but institution-wide access and support mean all have equitable opportunities to develop their skills, regardless of what they study or what individual tools they can afford.
Practice before it counts
At La Trobe University, some of the most interesting work begins with a simple question: how can we use AI to enhance practical experience in learning?
Dr Cameron Anderson, Head of the Paramedicine program, uses ChatGPT to create a wide range of practice activities delivered through the university’s learning management system, where students interpret an ECG, assess a possible heart attack or triage patients after a mass casualty incident. AI helps create simulations that reinforce and test classroom learning.
Professor Therese Keane, Associate Dean for Research and Industry Engagement in La Trobe’s School of Education, uses a social robot called Fletch to help future teachers practice giving feedback to parents. Powered by OpenAI large language models hosted through Microsoft Azure, Fletch responds with speech, facial expressions and head movements.
Professor Keane’s team developed realistic scenarios from interviews with highly experienced educators. Importantly, Fletch enables trainee teachers to practice situations where conversations with parents turn confrontational, developing key skills in an area that many teachers find challenging.
Professor Therese Keane at La Trobe University is helping future teachers practice difficult conversations with parents using Fletch, an OpenAI-powered social robot
La Trobe is bringing AI into more of its courses and operations. The university has made OpenAI’s agentic tools Codex and ChatGPT Work available across the institution, with its handbook listing Vibe Coding for Startups and Agentic AI Software Engineering (from 2027).
The university’s AI Business Studio extends practical learning into industry. It aims to give more than 1,000 students practice experience as consultants and forward deployed engineers using ChatGPT Edu and Codex to help small and medium enterprises adopt AI by 2028 and connect graduate skills with the needs of businesses.
An AI rollout of this size needs steady work behind the scenes. La Trobe reports dozens of live use cases, training for hundreds of people and 10% month-on-month growth in active users. It manages safe access and token economics as more people take part. “ChatGPT and Codex have helped shorten early systems development and innovation from months to weeks, and importantly, enabled embedded co-design by staff and students,” Laufenberg said.
As a newly established university created through a complex merger, Adelaide University has an opportunity to embed secure, governed and scalable uses of AI from the outset. Australia’s first new major university in a generation is building on existing use of OpenAI’s API by researchers, students and staff.
Adelaide University is one of the first institutions in the higher education sector to harness OpenAI Daybreak Blue to conduct authorised defensive security work, providing a vital capability for cyber defences, including vulnerability discovery, secure code review, malware analysis, incident response and patch validation.
UNSW Senior Lecturers Mariana Rodriguez-Valenzuela (seated) and May Lim assist with the rollout of ChatGPT Edu as Joel Solomons, Education Solutions Engineer at OpenAI ANZ, looks on
Learning when and how to use AI
Universities are also setting clear expectations for when students can use AI and when they need to demonstrate their own knowledge.
UNSW has introduced a Can, Can’t, Must framework for assessment. Depending on the learning goal, an educator can specify that AI use is permitted, prohibited or required. That gives students a way to practice using AI appropriately while still demonstrating the foundational knowledge their field demands.
The University of Sydney is pairing its rollout with a responsible AI framework alongside its assessment approach that ensures students demonstrate their own capabilities in supervised settings, then show how they can use AI effectively in open assessments.
La Trobe is also supporting wider access with practical guidance. Its library has developed free Responsible and Safe AI learning modules for all students, and AI skills development is being integrated in 50 priority first-year subjects for Semester 1, 2027. Tailored modules for Education, Law and Health connect AI literacy with professional responsibilities, while workshops and teaching resources support educators in designing learning activities and assessments.
Students already see AI skills as essential to their careers and an opportunity to get ahead. By widening ChatGPT access and bringing AI into everyday teaching, Australian universities are helping turn that ambition into practical experience. The goal is to prepare graduates who can use AI to learn, create and solve problems, with the subject knowledge and judgment to apply those skills confidently as they enter the workforce.
* This study by Pureprofile, on behalf of OpenAI, surveyed 1,018 university students aged 18 and over across Australia, studying on campus or remotely, from 3–7 August 2026.
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