UNSW has signed a first of its kind deal to integrate AI tools into learning and research through OpenAI's educational product ChatGPT Edu.
It follows a one year trial of Edu with 500 participants, which the university announced in December 2024.
At the time, UNSW said the agreement would allow researchers, teachers, and students to use “AI tools on a secure platform” while protecting “intellectual property”.
However, some students have noted concern around the partnership and how it will impact them.
Here's how it will work.
Background
OpenAI released ChatGPT Edu in May 2024.
The company said it designed Edu specifically for universities, which pay to use it.
Unlike the freely accessible version of ChatGPT, conversations and data from the Edu platform are not used to train OpenAI models.
Users can create custom versions of ChatGPT for specific purposes, and use it to assist with data analysis.
Edu also has higher message limits compared to free versions.
UNSW deal
On Wednesday, OpenAI and UNSW announced a deal to provide the university's 80,000 students, researchers and staff with access to ChatGPT Edu.
It follows a one year trial, which the uni said would inform a wider rollout across UNSW.
Now, students and researchers will also have access to ChatGPT Edu in what's being labelled the biggest educational enterprise agreement in the Asia-Pacific.
OpenAI confirmed the deal is the first and largest of its kind to be implemented in Australia.
UNSW guidelines prevent staff from using AI tools for grading.
This is one of the benefits promoted by the ChatGPT Edu platform.
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UNSW Business School Dean Professor Paul Andon told TDA that the uni's policy will continue, despite the partnership.
“I think it's important for universities to stay in control of what's best for the quality of their degrees [and] what's best for their students,” he said.
“As a result of that, that's the vision that we've taken around marking and grading,” Andon added.
Sustainability
TDA asked UNSW about how it would balance the deal with its Environmental Sustainability Plan (ESP).
The university is yet to release its 2026-30 plan, so the questions were based on its 2022-24 ESP.
“We're offsetting those emissions with what we call high integrity environment planting, Australian Carbon Credits,” Andon said.
He told TDA the university encourages “responsible” use of AI, including thinking about “the most efficient setting that's most appropriate for the task at hand.”
Student response
In 2025, UNSW partnered with OpenAI for a staff enterprise agreement.
TDA spoke to a third-year student who worked for the uni during that roll-out, which they said was “encouraged as a way to improve workflow and efficiency.”
The student, who asked to remain anonymous, said UNSW is now pushing its Edu deal “more towards students through studying, hackathons, build challenges, etc, which I think is really interesting”.
They noted privacy and academic integrity concerns, saying “students already use AI to cheat” and said they're interested to “see what visibility UNSW has over how students use their Edu accounts”.
Some other UNSW students told TDA they questioned the partnership.
Criticism
Manny, another UNSW student, said “studies have implicated generative AI in degrading... the capacity for individuals to adequately critically think.”
“There are capacities for generative AI to be really useful in... [but] there are massive trade-offs,” he said.
Manny added that he thinks it's a concern for any university to be “endorsing these products.”
