By SUSAN JONES
It has been an eventful couple of weeks at Pitt when it comes to artificial intelligence. The University hosted an international conference on the cross-section of health and AI, announced a new online undergraduate degree in health informatics and artificial intelligence, and partnered with Anthropic and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to create an AI-enabled campus of the future.
“Pitt’s really doing great work in leveraging AI in a number of ways,” Provost Joe McCarthy said at the Oct. 22 town hall. “Looking ahead, several of us that are on this webinar and beyond are trying to harness this expertise and enthusiasm by forming a University-wide leadership group to coordinate efforts in AI, across academics, research, operations, health sciences, etc., and make sure that we have the tools and infrastructure needed to support this ongoing, important work.”
Intersection of Health, AI & Tech
A three-day conference from Oct. 19 to 21 at Pitt, brought together the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils and the Council on Competitiveness to hear from experts on how AI can help improve health care and boost economies.
The event was hosted by Pitt, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University.
CMU President Farnam Jahanian, an executive committee member on the Council of Competitiveness, USA, said, “It’s no accident this conference is happening in Pittsburgh. … we’re a city of eds, meds and emerging tech. We’re part of an ecosystem that’s fueling economic development through place-based innovation, whose impact, of course, is amplified by research and talent from our academic institutions.”
Pitt Chancellor Joan Gabel started the second day of the conference by noting that Pitt, like the city it resides in, is “where toughness and resiliency and innovation have been forged into our DNA. And that’s because when Pittsburgh has needed something, Pitt has been very proud to give to them, like when we defeated polio in the 1950s or today, as we work to restore sight to the blind through a Vision Institute and the work of José Sahel.”
This region, she said, is the perfect place to explore the intersectionality of health, AI and technology because of the collaborations Western Pennsylvania is known for with industry, government, philanthropy, academics, medicine, economic development, venture capital, and universities.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro echoed these themes during his keynote address on Oct. 21.
“Pennsylvania is already taking a leading role in the country and around the world when it comes to AI and fostering collaborations between academia, industry and government,” he said, according to the Post-Gazette. “Our world is getting bigger because of AI and great institutions like Pitt and CMU that allow the technology to reach even further. I think AI has a lot of power and potential to help our researchers, doctors and health care providers get answers to Pennsylvanians a whole lot quicker and easier. It’s going to take more innovation and collaboration. We are all in. I believe we are leading the way on this.”
There were several key themes that emerged during the panel discussion on “The Health, AI and Productivity Imperative: From University Research to Community Impact.”
Harris Pastides, president emeritus of the University of South Carolina, said he prefers the term augmented intelligence. It’s not artificial, he said, because humans created it. AI is already being used in health care in many different ways, from doing the first reading on mammograms, to speeding up drug development, and improving operational efficiencies, to name just a few.
Jahanian said that the impact of these emerging technologies and AI, including robotics, “without any doubt, is one of the most transformative intellectual developments of our time, and the impact of that on every sector of our economy is undeniable. We see this in finance, manufacturing, certain certainly in education, and absolutely in health care.”
Beyond transforming health care “in ways that we could not even imagined it 10 or 15 years ago,” Jahanian said the other impact will be a transformation of labor in every sector of our economy.
“Some new jobs are going to be created, some jobs are going to be lost, and many jobs are going to be transformed,” he said. “In fact, one of the challenges for higher ed and the private sector is, how do we meet the moment and how do we embrace this point in given history such that we can transition, regardless of the sector of economy, to take advantage of these technologies.”
Part of meeting that moment is making sure everyone is AI fluent. Ohio State has declared an AI fluency initiative, said President Ted Carter, which means every student that goes to Ohio State, regardless of their academic discipline, will be AI fluent by 2029, starting with this year’s incoming freshman class. All faculty and staff also will be educated in AI principles.
Gabel said Pitt also is thinking very intentionally about how to prepare the next generation of innovators in these new technologies. “We are thinking very carefully here, obviously about our doctoral programs, but also about our clinicians, and how we train and work with clinicians, and then how those two groups work together in their ecosystem to be innovative.”
Jahanian said that AI needs to be integrated into all curriculum, from social sciences to humanities to life sciences. Delivering content in a different way is not education, he said.
“We believe we’re at the cusp of changing pedagogy — augmented by advances that we make in our curriculum — such that we can make education not only much more accessible, we can make it much more adaptive,” he said. “We can make it personalized and demonstrate learning outcomes through this approach. And AI, and the current generation of generative AI, is probably one of the first technologies that I’ve seen as a computer scientist that gives me hope that we can do this at scale.”
Other AI-related developments
Health informatics degree: In 2026, Pitt will launch its first online undergraduate degree — one with a strong emphasis on health data science, informatics and artificial intelligence.
The online Bachelor of Science in Health Informatics program from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) is a signature addition to the Pitt Online portfolio. This program extends the success of the SHRS accredited online and on-campus Master of Science in Health Informatics and its on-campus Bachelor of Science in Health Informatics, which is the first undergraduate health informatics program in the nation accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education. The new online format will carry this same distinction, becoming one of the first fully online accredited undergraduate programs in the country with a dedicated focus on AI in health care.
“AI is revolutionizing health care, and our program stands at the forefront,” Bambang Parmanto, professor and chair of the Department of Health Information Management, said in a news release. “Our revised BS in Health Informatics curriculum will integrate AI at its core. The accrediting body also specifically recommended that our department establish a concentration in AI, citing both the strong market need and our faculty’s unique expertise, which is not found in comparable programs at other institutions.”
Claude for Education: Pitt has partnered with Anthropic and AWS to become the first university to secure an institution-wide agreement for Claude for Education integrated with AWS, deployed across the Pittsburgh and regional campuses. Claude for Education is an advanced AI assistant developed by Anthropic, distinguished by its approach to learning and enterprise applications. It encourages critical thinking by posing guiding questions and offering personalized support, preparing students for professional AI tools, and meeting educational and administrative needs.
“By equipping our community with cutting-edge tools from Anthropic and AWS, we amplify how the university functions, how we support faculty, and how we ensure the best possible student experience in the classroom and beyond,” Chancellor Joan Gabel said in a news release. “This collaboration lays the groundwork for a new era of innovation in learning, teaching, research, and administration.”
“Claude for Education offers the possibility of a unified, safe AI space,” said Mark D. Henderson, Pitt’s chief information officer. “These tools can empower users to enhance student engagement, accelerate research, and transform teaching and learning. Claude’s customizable AI agents could assist advisors with student planning, aid researchers in streamlining presentations, and provide administrators with real-time visibility into operations.”
Students, faculty, and staff will have access to the platform later this academic year. Pitt’s implementation, backed by Anthropic and AWS, will serve as a national model for secure, scalable, and ethical AI deployment in academia.
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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