(Sam Douglas / Fourth Estate)
New artificial intelligence tools keeps the university on track with rapid digital advancements
BY RENATA PERNEGROVA, STAFF WRITER
Throughout the fall semester, George Mason made concrete steps toward integrating artificial intelligence capabilities into its operations by launching an enterprise AI platform called PatriotAI.
President Gregory Washington announced the launch of the initiative on June 4, 2025 as part of an inaugural component of the university’s “Integrate AI” ambition. Through a partnership with Microsoft and Cloudforce, the program aims to integrate artificial intelligence into academic and student services. These goals are in line with Mason’s stated commitment to innovation and digital transformation.
“PatriotAI is a platform available to everyone with a George Mason account,” says Amarda Shahu, Mason’s Inaugural VP and Chief AI Officer who has been involved in the initiative since day one.
The platform is compounded into six specific university-supported agents.
“PatriotAI can be treated as a chat, the same way as other similar AI platforms. But we decided that we were also going to create some specialized agents to make it easier for our community,” Shehu said.
These six initial agents are called Patriot Chat, DocuMate, PatriotPal, NourishNet, CourseMat and SyllaBright. Each of them are designed with unique purposes to enhance learning, research, student life and administration across campus in a different way.
Patriot Chat is a conversational assistant for general support and advice, similar to popular AI tools like ChatGPT.
PatriotPal and CourseMate are aimed at supporting students’ learning processes. The new tools work to provide information about administrative procedures and paperwork, analyze research articles, interpret textbook materials, understand lecture content and help prepare for exams.
DocuMate is an assistant for summarizing documents, formulating key concepts and conducting cross-document analyses.
Syllabright is available for faculty members, helping to develop and refine educational materials and adapt concepts to multiple purposes according to specific course requirements.
NourishNet offers guidance to students who experience food insecurity. It provides resources on how to access food programs on campus or in specific communities while avoiding the stigma that some students in this situation may experience.
Shehu says the idea behind NourishNet resembles the spirit of Mason.
“Since we are an access university, which makes us unique, a significant percentage of our students are food insecure. That is why we decided to integrate an agent that will work as a front door to what kind of programs are at this university to support food insecure students,” she said.
All of these platforms are now available to all members of the Mason community on the PatriotAI platform webpage, which can be accessed by Google search or through PatriotWeb.
Self-paced resources on how to use AI tools effectively while understanding its capabilities, limitations and ethical implications are also available. LinkedIn Learning is an accessible and free learning tool for active Mason students, faculty and staff.
Shehu says that there are growing communities of practice that form out of the desire to share experiences with PatriotAI.
“Communities of staff meet regularly and exchange feedback and advice on how they are using the platform and in what areas it may ease their work,” she said.
The university wrote that further development in the program will be based on user adaptation, feedback and experiences.
Better AI literacy and increased engagement with PatriotAI are two main metrics for assessing the platform’s success. “
We keep doing surveys and collecting feedback to see what percentage of our community engages with it. At the same time, it is important that faculty, staff and students know what these tools are capable of and, perhaps more importantly, what they are not capable of,” Shehu said.
