Mark Cianca
Principal,
Huron
On Top, Inside, Underneath: Finding the AI Opportunity beneath Your Operating Model
Thursday, October 01, 2026 | 1:00PM–1:45PM MT
Session Type:
Breakout Session
Delivery Format:
Industry Insights Session
Higher education is investing the least in AI exactly where the return is largest: underneath the work, in the space between systems that no single tool can reach. Most institutions are spending in two other layers. On top, assistants overlay existing work and speed up routine tasks. Inside, native features in the ERP, SIS, CRM, and LMS improve individual steps. Both deliver real gains, and both stop at the system boundary. Underneath is where something genuinely new becomes possible: for the first time, digital labor lets institutions add operating capacity without adding headcount, which reframes the administrative operating model as higher education's largest unclaimed AI opportunity. Working through a selected business process redesign end to end, we will show how capacity decouples from headcount, how the cost curve and service promise move together, and how to sequence all three layers so early wins fund the deeper work. Attendees will leave able to locate their institution across the three layers and name one value stream worth rebuilding underneath.
