In spring 2026, Provost Tricia Serio charged the University of Washington’s AI Governance Committee (AIGC) with developing recommendations for a University-wide framework and policy for the responsible use of AI. The committee’s task is not to answer every AI question at the UW, but to help establish a practical and adaptable approach to questions such as: who decides, according to what principles, with what review process and for which kinds of AI use.
Over the summer, the committee organized its work around a set of foundational workstreams. Their draft memos are now available for review:
- Current State & Gap Analysis (A) — What AI-related policies, guidance, practices and responsible offices already exist at UW, and where important gaps or overlaps reside.
- Peer & Standards Benchmarking (B) — How peer institutions and relevant external frameworks are approaching AI governance.
- Working Definition, Guiding Principles & Risk Framework (D) — A provisional framework for thinking about AI, its uses and its risks at the UW.
- Data, Privacy & Security (E) — Major data, privacy, security, consent, retention and vendor-related issues raised by AI use.
- Governance, Implementation & Policy Architecture (F) — How AI governance might fit within the UW’s existing structures and where new coordination may be needed.
- Environmental Impacts & Sustainability (G) — Environmental considerations for AI-related procurement, infrastructure and governance decisions.
We are also sharing a record of the committee’s engagement with UW units and stakeholders to date, coordinated by a seventh workstream on Consultation & Campus Engagement (C).
These memos are products of the AIGC’s summer work. The committee includes individuals from various parts of the UW community, with varying perspectives and opinions. Consensus on every issue is not required. However, the committee collectively stands behind these summer memos as a shared foundation for the next phase.
These materials are not final recommendations. The committee’s work over the summer sought to lay a shared foundation for the work ahead. This fall, the committee will translate the summer findings into concrete proposals, test them against the summer findings and campus experience and work toward an initial integrated set of recommendations for the Provost.
We also request broader UW input. We are asking units to hold their own discussions of the summer materials and send structured feedback back to the AIGC. This will allow questions to be considered in the settings where their implications are best understood, while helping the committee identify common concerns, important differences across contexts, and issues we may have missed. We will send instructions for submitting feedback to unit leads shortly; the questions we ask you to discuss are:
- What in the summer memos should the AIGC carry forward, change or reconsider? Please identify any specific finding, principle, risk or proposed direction that stands out, and – importantly – explain why.
- What concrete AI use cases or concerns in your unit are not adequately addressed by the summer materials? Specific examples will be especially useful. Please remember that the aim of the summer was to lay a shared foundation for the committee’s later recommendations: understanding the UW’s current AI-governance landscape and policies at other universities, establishing provisional principles and a risk framework and identifying the major governance, data/privacy, sustainability and engagement questions that still need resolution.
- For the issues most important to your unit, which decisions, policy or framework should be codified at the central level (e.g., existing UW offices or a University-wide governance process)? The AIGC has received a clear signal that guidance and default policies from central leadership are desirable.
- What are the one to three most important areas you would like the AIGC to address? These might involve policy, guidance, approved tools, review processes, training, resources or other institutional support.
We expect the committee’s work to continue through winter quarter 2027, with final recommendations to be delivered in March 2027.
New group to coordinate AI guidance and consultation
To help the UW community navigate new and complex AI questions as they arise, the University has formed an AI Tiger Team. The team offers an interim point of coordination during the 2026–27 academic year while the AI Governance Committee explores longer-term governance approaches and develops recommendations for the University. The Tiger Team spans all of the UW including, but not limited to, the operational and academic enterprise as well as UW Medicine. The Tiger Team includes the following individuals:
- Ana Anderson, enterprise initiatives officer, UW Medicine and associate vice president for Medical Affairs
- Andreas Bohman, vice president for UW Information Technology and chief information officer
- Sarah Frazier, program manager, Enterprise Risk Management
- David Lance, chief of staff to the president
- Jason Johnson, chief of staff to the provost
- Eric Neil, chief Information officer, UW Medicine
- Margaret Peyton, chief of staff, UW Medicine
- Noah Smith, vice provost for AI
Most questions about AI are best addressed first within your unit by following existing UW policies and processes (see, for example, resources from UWIT and the UW Medicine Innovation Core). When a question cannot readily be resolved or requires expertise from elsewhere across the University, you can submit it through the AI consultation and review form. The Tiger Team can help connect questions to the right experts and, when needed, coordinate across parts of UW to help reach a timely resolution.
The Tiger Team is not a new approval or policy-making body, does not replace existing UW or UW Medicine governance processes and is not intended to review every use of AI. Its purpose is to make sure there is a clear path for answering questions that need broader coordination while the University builds its longer-term approach to AI governance.