Future-Ready Tech Leadership in Higher Ed

Howard Miller, CIO, UCLA Anderson School of management

Howard Miller is the Chief Information Officer at UCLA Anderson School of Management. With over 35 years of IT leadership across education, manufacturing, and life sciences, he specializes in digital strategy, cyber security, and AI integration. He holds an MBA and Computer Science degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In an exclusive interview with Education Technology Insights, he shared his invaluable thoughts on uncertainties in universities and AI use in education.

Listening First, Innovating Fast

I have been the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at UCLA Anderson School of Management for just over six years. I oversee all technology services for the school, which supports around 750 faculty and staff members and approximately 2,500 students.

When I arrived here, I spent the initial three months on a listening tour. I met with stakeholders across the school, asked what was working well, what wasn’t, and reminded them that our role was to support and serve their needs. Through those conversations, it became clear that there was significant potential to do more with technology.

We had opportunities to innovate, take a more strategic approach, implement automation, reduce technical debt, and phase out outdated legacy systems. Along the way, we also improved employee satisfaction and retention by introducing modern tools that made a meaningful difference across the organization.

Higher Education at a Crossroads

The challenges facing higher education in 2025 are significant. If there were a word to define the year, it would be uncertainty.

One major source of uncertainty is the current geopolitical climate. International students represent a critical revenue stream for universities, yet we do not know whether they will be able or willing to come. Shifting policies, global tensions, and visa complications all contribute to the unknowns around international enrollment.

“It's very easy to get lost in the technology. But do not lose sight of the fact that, at the end of the day, business relationships really matter”

Another concern is the future of university endowments. If proposed changes to how endowments are taxed move forward, our ability to draw from these funds could be significantly reduced. That would directly affect one of the university’s key financial lifelines.

At the moment, we are already navigating a hiring freeze and a travel freeze. We are preparing for double-digit budget cuts and facing the possibility of headcount reductions. This is not unique to our institution. Speak to any of my peers across the country, and they would tell you the same story.

Building an AI-Forward Campus

For the past two years, I’ve been fully immersed in understanding what AI means for our organization. I’ve spent that time living, breathing, and discussing AI, constantly exploring its implications. It is one of the most transformative technologies we’ve seen in our lifetimes. Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, put it well when he said that today’s AI is the worst AI we’ll ever know.

Last fall, we made a deliberate decision as a school to be AI-forward. We recognize that our graduates will enter workplaces where AI is a core part of how businesses operate. My focus has been on delivering real, production-ready use cases, including chatbots and AI agents designed to support the faculty-student experience.

Our goal is to help students learn how to use AI responsibly and securely, while also giving them hands-on experience with the tools they will encounter in the workforce. At the same time, we are helping staff explore ways to use AI to improve efficiency and productivity across the board.

The Future Is Closer Than It Looks

I've been at a couple of conferences recently, and everybody is talking about the concept of agentic AI, and that's sort of next. Agentic means we use AI, not just to give us an answer to a question but actually to go complete an action in an automated end to end way. That is probably still about six to 12 months away for a lot of us, and probably will be top of mind for the next 12 to 24 months.

Quantum computing is probably the next big thing that is at least visible on our radar in the foreseeable two to three years beyond that. The pace of change is fast. While nothing is certain, agentic AI and quantum computing seem to be the next two major shifts on the way.

People Matter More Than Platforms

You really can never underestimate the importance of how much business relationships matter. Thematically, for me, it was probably my biggest lesson learned at this job. In today's day and age, the CIO job is less about being the smartest technical person in the room, and more about being able to come up with business solutions. You really need to be out talking to people, working with people, understanding how your business works in order to make that happen. It's very easy to get lost in the technology. But do not lose sight of the fact that, at the end of the day, business relationships really matter.

Quantum Computing

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