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ASU’s AI Day highlights campus-wide momentum

Lori K. Baker

September 8, 2026

The expo floor at Arizona State University’s second-annual AI Day buzzed with conversation and knowledge sharing last week. More than 200 Sun Devils gathered on the Tempe campus to explore tabletop exhibits that showcased AI in action across academics, research and work. Twenty colleges and units presented interactive demos, research posters and project presentations highlighting the impactful ways ASU is leading in AI advancement.

AI Day at ASU featured events across the university's four campuses including Tempe, West Valley, Downtown and Polytechnic.

Here’s a look at the various AI initiatives on display at the Tempe-based gathering:

AI-enriched classroom learning

Naomi Ellis, an instructor at ASU FIDM, the university’s fashion school, presented her new course, AI foundations for fashion and design. In the course, students interact with a chatbot embedded in early lessons before they build a personal portfolio website showcasing AI-driven experiences they have developed, from brand bots to sustainable shopping tools. Her goal is to prepare graduates entering the fashion industry with AI skills that are in high demand.

“AI is absolutely everywhere in our fashion industry,” she said. “Every price point, every fashion company — they’re all using it in different ways, and they're also all trying to figure out how to use it efficiently. Teaching students that discipline now will make them more of an asset to the companies they work for.”

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Another approach to using AI to accelerate learning was presented by Steve Salik, a clinical associate professor in the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation. He is building AI mentors embedded in his learning design and technologies courses to simulate professional, mentor-like conversations to help students strengthen communication skills while stepping into internship roles.

Expanding AI-powered research

Tessa Fisher, a research facilitator with ASU’s Research Technology Office, introduced attendees to the ASU AI Research (AIR) Platform, a universitywide computing framework designed to remove barriers to advanced computing and expand research through AI.

Unlike commercial tools such as ChatGPT or Claude, the AIR Platform keeps information in-house. “No one wants to be plagiarized,” Fisher said, noting that outside AI companies “do have a tendency to use your data as training material,” a particular concern for researchers with unpublished, embargoed findings. Because the AIR Platform is self-contained and free to any ASU researcher, it also sidesteps the usage caps and rising per-token costs that can come with commercial subscriptions once a laboratory’s queries pile up.

Institutional innovation

John Bevell, senior AI product manager at ASU, fielded questions about CreateAI Builder, ASU’s in-house platform that lets faculty, staff and — beginning this semester — students build their own AI tools from a menu of more than 50 different models. “It allows individuals to build and then plug in whatever model they like, which actually increases the speed at which innovations and insights can occur,” Bevell said.

The platform includes a knowledge base that syncs with Google Drive, where users can browse and adapt tools their colleagues have already built, and an evaluation tool that scores how accurately a custom AI assistant answers test questions. ASU is now expanding the platform with an agentic workflow builder and deeper Canvas integration, aiming to make AI-assisted teaching tools easier for faculty to build and for students to use directly within their coursework.

Bevell said the biggest change this semester was making CreateAI Builder available to students for the first time. He expects that access to accelerate the kind of grassroots experimentation already happening among faculty, with students building study aids, flashcard generators and writing-feedback tools from their own course materials.

At another table, ASU’s Business and Finance Department showcased its HEAT (Human Empowerment through AI Technology) program, which helps employees find efficient, AI-driven solutions to everyday tasks. The program consists of three training levels, from exploring essential AI concepts, applications and ethics to hands-on practice to becoming a “champion” who advises leaders, identifies opportunities, promotes AI and supports their units.

From runway to research

Together, the expo presentations told a consistent story: AI at ASU has crossed the line from novelty to necessity, in fashion studios and research laboratories alike.