Innovation at the Edge of Chaos: Frictions in the Education Ecosystem in the Age of GenAI

This paper investigates how universities are approaching the integration of Generative AI (GenAI) within teaching practices, focusing on the ongoing transformation of the broader educational service ecosystem. Drawing from a qualitative, exploratory study grounded in the Gioia methodology, we analyze institutional policies, experiential practices, and stakeholder perceptions—along with reflexive insights from an AI agent (ChatGPT)—to explore how GenAI is framed, encouraged, or restricted. While universities engage in multiple missions—teaching, research, and third mission—this study deliberately focuses on teaching, a domain where contradictions are most visible, and where the tensions triggered by GenAI unfold with greater immediacy, according to both faculty and students that have been interviewed. The paper argues that the higher education service ecosystem is approaching a state of “edge of chaos,” a condition of free complexity in which roles, norms, and value creation practices are being redefined or the ecosystem will collapse. The contribution offers theoretical and managerial insights on how universities might navigate this liminal state to remain relevant and generative actors in the future education ecosystem.