La Trobe has given all 3,500 staff ChatGPT Edu before its students
Universities have spent three years arguing about whether students should be allowed to use AI. La Trobe University has moved the argument on to who builds with it. Every one of its 3,500 staff already has ChatGPT Edu, and universal access for its 45,000 students and staff is planned for the first quarter of 2027. Codex and ChatGPT Work are available across the institution. The work is led by Phil Laufenberg, Pro Vice-Chancellor AI and Chief AI Officer, a role the university describes as the first of its kind in Australia.
What the staff are doing with it
The examples come from teaching, not the IT department. Dr Cameron Anderson, head of the paramedicine program, uses ChatGPT to build practice scenarios in which students interpret an ECG, assess a possible heart attack or triage patients after a mass casualty incident. "They still need to interpret evidence, explain their reasoning and defend their decisions," he said. Professor Therese Keane, associate dean for research and industry engagement in the School of Education, uses a social robot called Fletch so trainee teachers can rehearse difficult conversations with parents, including ones that turn confrontational. La Trobe reports dozens of live use cases, training for hundreds of people and 10 per cent month-on-month growth in active users. Laufenberg said the tools have helped "shorten early systems development and innovation from months to weeks" and enabled co-design by staff and students.
The rules that come with it
Access is paired with structure. Free Responsible and Safe AI modules are available to all students, AI skills are being built into 50 priority first-year subjects from Semester 1, 2027, and tailored modules for education, law and health connect AI literacy to professional obligations. An AI Business Studio aims to give more than 1,000 students experience as consultants and forward deployed engineers helping small businesses adopt AI by 2028. La Trobe sits in a wider group announced the same week: UNSW is bringing ChatGPT Edu to more than 80,000 students and staff, and the University of Sydney is staging its rollout after a trial.
What this means for L&D
"AI should happen with us, not to us," Laufenberg said. For a large employer, the useful part is the order of operations: staff first, then students, with a named executive owner, practice built into the work people already do, and an honest measure of active use rather than licences issued. The test for La Trobe will be whether staff capability keeps pace as 45,000 people arrive in 2027. That is the gap our AI Training programs are built to close.
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