In a world where newspapers show even Silicon Valley luminaries struggling with the pace of AI change, learning about the subject poses a continual challenge to everyone. One hundred ten Vanderbilt colleagues answered the challenge by attending the Edge AI Workshop on October 19, 2026. The group learned about how AI works, how a council regulates and improves AI at Vanderbilt, and examples from three use cases. Attendees asked questions, reviews were positive, and engagement was high.
AI Governance
Dr. Yaa Kumah-Crystal started the workshop by explaining how an AI council governs usage at Vanderbilt Health. They have faculty with key AI knowledge in about a dozen areas. They can strengthen a project with AI expertise so that a group doesn’t have to muster everything on their own. Whenever any idea that engages AI other than Microsoft Co-Pilot or aiChat is ready to move forward, first submit the project via this REDCap survey to get the ball rolling. The AI governance committee will help to strengthen the use of AI so that you don’t have to do so yourself. Approval from the IRB and/or Vanderbilt Cybersecurity might be needed later in the process.
The preferred option at Vanderbilt for chat agents is Microsoft Copilot, whose contained instance is safe to enter proprietary and clinical data into. The basic version is available free using Microsoft products like Microsoft Teams. For $300 per year, employees can also purchase Microsoft Copilot Premium from Vanderbilt Health’s Software Store, which integrates with Microsoft Office, has personal agents, contains an organizational context, and more. Learn more at Vanderbilt Health’s Generative AI Homepage.
Nuts to Bolts
Next, Dr. Jesse Spencer-Smith of the College of Connected Computing explained AI from “nuts to bolts.” He broke down the theory of Artificial Intelligence into digestible bits. He described how, in December 2025, AI moved from the era of mere chat into an era of agents. These newer AI agents can accomplish tasks in the world and reproduce described “skills” managed by AI. To learn more about leveraging AI in your work context, the Data Sciences Institute holds open office hours from 12-1pm every Friday.
Use Cases
Finally, the workshop concluded with three use cases. Dr. Alvin Jeffery shared insightful tips for increasing research productivity. Dr. Daniel Fabbri presented Brim Analytics’ software, developed at Vanderbilt, that automates medical chart abstraction into REDCap with AI. Finally, Dr. Katherine Brown discussed how she and colleagues used AI as a teleconsultant for HIV work in low-income countries.
Dr. Jeffery’s tips for productivity included four topics: Grant writing, analysis, project management, and preparing presentations. He shared an outline for “vibe writing” for grants that included two handfuls of specific instructions to direct AI towards appropriate feedback. Pairing AI with analytical skills or code can inspect data and ensure reproducible workflows. Project management can integrate with Jira or Trello to surface key decisions, blockers, deadlines, and routine status updates. Finally, AI can help make presentations by following these steps: Define the topic via a lengthy paragraph; ask AI to critique the story for missing elements; to build out the framework, get AI to map existing evidence and provide visuals; and finally check each slide for inconsistencies before rehearsing and preparing.
Next Steps
Edge for Scholars is planning a follow-up event in the spring of 2027. At the rate that AI seems to be changing, the world might not yet be aware of the topics that will be discussed!
