We are grateful for the enthusiastic participation in our EDU grants program. While this program has now closed, we invite you to explore CustomGPT with a free 7-day trial. Experience how our AI can revolutionize your projects and research!
Here at CustomGPT.ai, we embody the goals of exploring and expanding the boundaries of generative AI, principles reflected in how our platform works. We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be funding AI research grants for college and university members to the value of $3,000 per successful application.
Our college and university faculty grant initiative reflects our commitment to fostering innovation and the practical application of generative AI in the academic world.
It demonstrates our confidence in the thus far relatively unrealized potential of generative AI chatbots, agents, and knowledge repositories for enhancing student learning experiences, facilitating tutor roles and course delivery, and empowering academic research programs as well as many other use cases that students, professors, and entrepreneurs will want to explore.
The initiative also reflects our belief in our product, CustomGPT.ai, as a zero-code, privacy-first, business-grade platform to quickly build a custom AI solution while mitigating the risks of inaccuracies and hallucinations.
Faculty AI Research Grant Details
What We Offer
Successful applicants will receive a CustomGPT.ai Premium License free for six months, providing access to our advanced AI tools valued at approximately $3,000. This package supports the creation of up to 100 custom chatbots, ensuring ample resources for impactful research and teaching projects.
Each faculty grant recipient will be supported by comprehensive documentation and potential one-on-one sessions to maximize the opportunity of using our AI tools in educational and research endeavors.
Who Can Apply
Proposals are welcomed from full-time faculty members across various disciplines at 4-year colleges and universities and associated employees of graduate degree programs.
Proficiency in coding is not required to use CustomGPT.ai, but applicants should have an understanding and vision for the use of generative AI in research and teaching, including vision and image citations, as this will be crucial in the successful applicant selection process.
How To Apply
Submit a detailed proposal and resume/curriculum vitae via email to nate@customgpt.ai or apply online. You can download the proposal template here.
We encourage applicants to first engage with our platform through a free 7-day trial to understand its capabilities in context with relevant expectations.
Proposals will be accepted until May 15, 2024, with grants awarded on a rolling basis starting May 1, 2024.
Anticipated Impacts of CustomGPT.ai University and College Research Grants
Our goals
We hope to enable grant recipients to:
- Develop and deploy feature-rich custom AI swiftly using our intuitive no-code platform
- Enhance accessibility to information for their students, colleagues, and the wider public
- Share their findings and experiences through various channels, fostering a collaborative academic community
The use cases in education and for colleges and universities are varied, and the full potential of generative AI, as it continues to evolve, is largely untapped, which opens an early adopter opportunity.
- Professors and tutors can facilitate student learning by creating course-specific chatbots and curriculum repositories based on their own knowledge as well as available academic texts, reports and course resources.
- Researchers can provide access to important academic research, create comprehensive knowledge repositories, engage stakeholders and the public, and formulate engaging, easy-to-use tools to share their work.
- Colleges, universities, and departments can build conversational platforms to facilitate access to student services, support, and content, including admissions, schedules and curriculums, placements, alumni relations, and student news services.
Interest in generative AI for education is expected to grow rapidly over the next 6-18 months, with students and stakeholders growing accustomed to new interactive and engaging tools that can support learning and free more tutor time for one-to-one and class sessions. Generative AI further presents the opportunity to address declining interest in conventional learning tools such as textbooks and journals.
CustomGPT.ai uses RAG technology to mitigate the hallucinations and falsifications that often appear when using public AI tools without such guardrails. A CustomGPT.ai chatbot uses OpenAI’s advanced LLM technology for its conversational and natural language processing (NLP) skills, but it can be populated with user-specific and proprietary data, drawing its responses only from this information and not its sources from the web.
CustomGPT.ai for Education and Knowledge: Example Case Studies
For further exploration, watch this exciting video showing how students and professors used CustomGPT.ai to help in the classroom.
A group of students at @XavierU developed an AI model called D’Artagnan, designed to help students and professors in the classroom.
— Annie Brown (@AnnieBrownNews) May 10, 2024
Dr. Jarrod Humphrey, who helped oversee the group, says it’s the first AI model of its kind. @Local12 pic.twitter.com/byrtPPN25x
You can also look for inspiration or expand existing ideas by perusing our recent case studies, including:
- Per Bergfors, Copenhagen Business Academy: Demonstrating and Inspiring the Implementation of AI to Improve Learning
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship: A One-Stop Shop of Guidance, Events, Resources and Classes for Entrepreneurs
- Sébastien Laye (entrepreneur and economist): Using AI to Answer Detailed Economic Queries
- Lehigh University: Making a Century of University History and News Available to Students
Discover the full CustomGPT Case Study Library
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the faculty AI research grant still open?
No. The faculty AI research grant is closed. If you still want to assess fit, you can use a free 7-day trial to test a narrow research or teaching use case before seeking internal approval or other funding. For institutional review, relevant trust signals include SOC 2 Type 2 certification, GDPR compliance, and a policy that customer data is not used for model training.
Who could apply for the faculty AI research grant, and did applicants need coding experience?
Eligible applicants were full-time faculty members at 4-year colleges and universities, along with associated employees of graduate degree programs. Coding experience was not required. What mattered was having a clear plan for how generative AI would support research or teaching, including image and citation use.
What kinds of faculty projects were a strong fit for this grant?
The strongest fit was a project tied to one clear academic workflow, such as helping students find course information, supporting tutoring or seminar delivery, or letting a lab search its own papers and presentations. Levin Lab at Tufts shows the kind of focused source-based use case that fits this model: “Omg finally, I can retire! A high-school student made this chat-bot trained on our papers and presentations” — Dr. Michael Levin, Professor, Levin Lab (Tufts University). A proposal is usually stronger when it defines one audience, one body of source material, and one measurable outcome.
How can faculty show that an AI project will have real academic impact?
Use a measurable pilot instead of broad claims. Chicago Public Schools reported a 91% success rate across 13,495 HR queries, saved 600+ hours, and cut support costs by $25,000 in its first year. For a faculty project, the same logic applies: define the users, track how many questions the system handles, measure answer quality, and document a practical outcome such as time saved or faster access to information.
Why do privacy and citation controls matter in a faculty AI proposal?
Faculty proposals are easier to defend when answers come from approved sources and can cite where information came from. That reduces the risk of unsupported responses in teaching and research settings. For institutional review, relevant controls include citation-backed retrieval, SOC 2 Type 2 certification, GDPR compliance, and a policy that customer data is not used for model training.
What should faculty do if they missed the application deadline?
Start with one small use case that can produce a concrete result quickly. A free 7-day trial can help you test the idea before you seek other funding. Barry Barresi described that kind of focused AI workflow this way: “Powered by my custom-built Theory of Change AIM GPT agent on the CustomGPT.ai platform. Rapidly Develop a Credible Theory of Change with AI-Augmented Collaboration.” — Barry Barresi, Social Impact Consultant. For a faculty team, a short pilot can help you clarify the problem, assemble source materials, and build evidence for a future department or grant request.
Related Resources
For more context on how AI research support connects to real-world applications, explore this related guide.
- Education RAG Solutions — See how retrieval-augmented generation supports schools, universities, and academic teams with accurate, context-aware AI using CustomGPT.ai.