Abstract
The “AI revolution” has thrust higher education into a crucible of hype, anxiety and opportunism. Riding the crest of generative AI's 2023 publicity surge, universities oscillated from blanket bans to breathless proclamations of imminent transformation—often without probing the technology’s darker undercurrents. This Handbook rejects that Panglossian script. Drawing on scholars and practitioners from six continents, it interrogates AI's sweeping promises against its material realities: algorithmic bias, extractive labour, environmental costs, surveillance creep and the risk of deepening inequities. We argue that higher education is neither ossified nor ready-made for salvation by tech oligarchs; it is already radically reshaped by decades of marketisation and ed-tech incursions. AI's next wave, therefore, demands critical AI literacy, not passive adoption. Our volume provides a global survey of AI's influence on governance, teaching, assessment, research, work and disciplinary cultures, while foregrounding overlooked voices and local contexts. By mapping opportunities alongside existential threats, the chapters call on leaders, educators, students and policymakers to reclaim agency: scrutinise data governance, demand transparency, embed ethics and design human-centred, socially just systems. The future of universities should be authored by informed communities, not dictated by algorithmic inevitability. Our Introduction frames the stakes, situates the book within the fragmented literature and issues a clear challenge: higher education must shape AI on its own terms—or be reshaped by it.