Technology Magazine December 2025 | Page 293

UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG into AI systems to create proposals and ensure compliance.“ Things that would have taken hours before to read through,” Sandra says. With these time-intensive tasks now automated, staff are encouraged to focus on innovation and strategic thinking.
The team at Lynchburg is intentional that the use of AI should be carried out with safeguards, though, promoting the use of closed AI models when they are sharing the kind of sensitive information found in policies or contracts.“ It needs to be a closed model where it’ s not training the model for other people,” Charley stresses.“ It’ s not data that’ s being released into the world.”
Preparing students for AI-powered careers It is no secret that the corporate world has been in the throes of AI fever for the past few years. Naturally, the job market has already started to favour people with AI literacy. At the University of Lynchburg, the team’ s job is to prepare students for that reality.“ AI is not taking people’ s jobs. People with AI skills are taking people’ s jobs,” Charley says.
Employers now routinely ask about AI skills in job interviews. The question isn’ t whether candidates have technical abilities, it’ s whether they’ ve learned to use AI effectively. As a result, students graduating without these skills may risk being left behind.
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