Higher Ed IT Leaders Must Balance AI Innovation With Secure Core Systems

Higher education IT leaders are caught in a bind. Campuses face institutional and cultural pressure to move fast on artificial intelligence and digital transformation. But that ambition collides with the reality that faculty and students still depend on core systems, such as registration, identity verification and learning platforms, that cannot afford to fail. ListEdTech, an education market research firm, calls this dilemma “the stability paradox.” A 2026 ListEdTech report found that the top IT investment priorities at 55 universities include data and storage, identity and access management…