Generative artificial intelligence is changing how people communicate, create, work, and interact with information. For students preparing to enter the communication field, understanding how to use these tools is becoming increasingly important, but knowing how to use AI effectively also means knowing when to question it, verify it, or decide not to use it at all say faculty experts at the College of Communication and Information.
This year, Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations Assistant Professor of Practice Jamie Ward and School of Communication Studies Assistant Professor Jessica Frampton are part of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s 2026 Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) Faculty Fellows cohort, a program designed to help faculty incorporate generative AI into their courses through new learning objectives, assignments, and activities.
The fellowship builds on the work of its inaugural cohort, which included two other School of Communication Studies faculty members, Lecturer Felicia Slattery and Associate Professor Michelle Violanti, who explored the integration of generative AI into Communication Studies 240 Business and Professional Communication. This year, Ward and Frampton are taking that work into their own classrooms, developing different approaches that reflect their respective fields while addressing a shared challenge: preparing students for a professional landscape in which AI is becoming increasingly embedded.
For Ward, that work builds on AI courses she already developed: a graduate-level course, Advertising and Public Relations AI in Strategic Communication, and an introductory undergraduate course, AI in Communication: Ethics, Tools and Impact. These courses demonstrated to Ward that students were interested in learning about AI, while the fellowship is giving her an opportunity to reconsider what AI literacy should look like in the classroom.
“I applied to be a faculty fellow because I was already working with AI, and I wanted to make sure our students were prepared for the changes it was bringing to communication,” Ward said.
As part of the fellowship, Ward has focused on revising the undergraduate course to emphasize strategic decision-making rather than simply teaching students how to use individual AI tools. Because technology changes quickly, she believes students need soft skills to be adaptable as specific platforms and applications evolve.
“My goal was to build a course that teaches students how to make good decisions about AI, including when to use it, how to evaluate what it produces, and when not to use it,” Ward said. “Tools will change. I wanted students to understand how to use AI strategically.”
That approach has shaped the way students interact with AI throughout Advertising and Public Relations 216 AI Ethics, Tools, and Impact. Rather than limiting AI to a single assignment or unit, students work with it throughout the semester by exploring prompting, writing, image generation, bias, privacy, AI assistants, brand visibility, organizational AI policies, and other applications connected to communication work.
One assignment, an AI Brand Audit, asks students to select a brand and use multiple AI platforms to investigate how those systems describe the same organization. Students ask questions about the brand’s reputation, competitors, and differentiators, then compare responses and evaluate what the AI gets right, what it misses, and where the platforms deviate from each other.
The assignment also asks students to compare the AI-generated descriptions with how the brand presents itself through its own online channels. The exercise reflects a growing reality for advertising and public relations professionals as organizations are no longer the sole source of information about themselves. Audiences are increasingly turning to AI for information about a company without visiting its website or social media accounts.
Ward wants students to understand the implications of that shift, including the responsibility communication professionals have to evaluate AI-generated information and consider how it may affect an organization’s reputation.
“One thing that has become much clearer to me is that knowing how to use AI is not the same thing as knowing how to use AI well,” Ward said. “The technology makes it very easy to produce something that looks polished and convincing. That does not mean it is accurate or even good communication.”
That distinction also informs how Ward approaches ethics in the classroom. Students consider accuracy, bias, privacy, transparency, and the consequences of relying on AI-generated content. They also learn that AI should not replace human cognition and the creativity communication professionals bring to their work.
Ward said, “Students need to know how to ask good questions, evaluate sources, recognize bias, verify information, protect private information, and be transparent about how they use AI.”
Ward also incorporates hands-on experiences with tools students may encounter in their future careers, such as creating AI video spokespeople with HeyGen, developing data visualizations with Napkin AI, and creating AI assistants with a large language model of their choice.
Her approach reflects a broader shift in advertising and public relations, where professionals increasingly need to understand not only what AI can produce, but also the communication and reputational risks associated with using it.
“In advertising and public relations, there are consequences for inaccurate or misleading communication,” Ward said. “So, I approach AI as both a tool and a communication issue.”
Frampton is taking a different approach to her generative AI fellowship work by focusing on how AI can be incorporated into interpersonal communication education.
Frampton applied to the program after noticing students use generative AI in her courses and recognizing gaps in their understanding of the technology’s limitations and ethical considerations. In some cases, she observed students use AI to find sources without realizing the AI’s sources were fabricated.
Like Ward, the fellowship gave Frampton the opportunity to redesign her course, Communication Studies 312 Survey of Interpersonal Communication, to include AI-related learning objectives, assignments, and activities developed through a summer -long process that incorporates feedback from faculty coaches.
“I applied to the GenAI Faculty Fellows Program because I believed the program would give me the support needed to redesign a course in a way that would help students address some of these learning gaps around technology many of them are already using,” Frampton said.
One of Frampton’s new assignments uses Sway, a grant-funded platform that pairs students with one another. An AI conversation guide provides recommendations intended to help students phrase their messages in ways that support constructive dialogue.
After completing the conversation, students reflect on the experience, evaluating how well the AI guide followed interpersonal communication principles, and identifying where course concepts appeared in their conversations. They also consider the benefits and drawbacks of using AI for interpersonal communication.
A second assignment uses four AI characters Frampton created through the UTK AI Hub. Students engage with the AI characters in role-playing scenarios designed to demonstrate how situational and relational factors can affect interpersonal communication, then reflect on the experience and consider how useful AI can be as a tool for practicing communication skills.
Frampton said the first assignment has already given this semester’s students an opportunity to see both the possibilities and limitations of AI. While some students enjoyed using the AI conversation guide, others found it less helpful when the system struggled to understand the nuances of communication.
For Frampton, that reaction is part of the learning process.
“Being able to identify when AI use is not actually helpful in interpersonal communication is part of what I want students to learn,” Frampton said.
That emphasis on critical evaluation is central to Frampton’s approach. She sees AI as potentially useful for brainstorming, feedback, proofreading, role-playing, and studying, but cautions against allowing it to take over the cognitive work students should develop themselves.
“AI is not a suitable replacement for your own thinking and creativity,” Frampton said. “…but you still have to critically evaluate what it gives you, verify information, and make the final product your own.”
Frampton’s work as a researcher also informs her understanding of AI and communication. She has conducted research on AI use in interpersonal communication, including a series of studies with Boston University co-author Katy Coduto examining how AI-mediated communication affects perceptions of people’s motivations and character traits.
Their research examines situations in which people use AI to help craft messages to other people, including relationship dissolution and relationship escalation. Their current study explores whether perceptions of AI use are connected to judgments about authenticity, effort, and character.
For both CCI faculty members, the fellowship has reinforced the importance of teaching students how to think critically about technology rather than simply keeping pace with the newest tools.
Both Ward and Frampton’s fellowship work has included multiple rounds of revision, with faculty coaches providing feedback to strengthen guidance on responsible and iterative AI use, emphasize human oversight, and align reflection questions more closely with course learning objectives.
“The fellowship gave me the opportunity to work with two coaches who reviewed my course content and provided me with invaluable feedback,” Ward said. “It has made the course much stronger.”
Frampton similarly emphasizes the importance of retaining the human skills students must possess regardless of how quickly technology changes.
“It is difficult to predict the future,” Frampton said. “Technology might look completely different by the time they graduate.”
Rather than trying to anticipate which AI tools students will use years from now, Frampton encourages her students to continue developing skills technology cannot replace, including communication, collaboration, relationship-building, and leadership.
“What employers are consistently saying is that, now more than ever, human communication skills are highly valued,” Frampton said. “These are skills that are fundamentally human and vital to almost every career, and they are the skills we teach you in the School of Communication Studies.”
Ward sees a similar future for AI in advertising and public relations. She expects AI to become an integrated part of communication education and professional practice, much as social media moved from being a distinct area of study to an everyday part of communication.
“We need to prepare students for the role AI will play in communication, but I do not think that means designing courses around specific models or tools,” Ward said. “Instead, we need to focus on the skills that will remain valuable, including critical thinking, ethics, and the ability to assess what AI produces.”
Through the GenAI Faculty Fellows program, Ward and Frampton are helping CCI students develop those skills in two different areas of communication. Their work demonstrates that preparing students for an AI-enabled professional world surpasses learning new technology by helping them understand its possibilities, recognize its limitations, and make thoughtful decisions about when and how it belongs in their work.
For Ward, those concepts boil down to understanding both what AI can do and where human judgment remains essential.
“Learn what AI does well and where it fails,” Ward said. “AI can replace many human tasks, but it cannot replace our ability to think strategically, have empathy, or make ethical judgments.”
