The University of Washington is now offering ChatGPT Edu to UW faculty and staff through the UW Software Catalog (UWare).
ChatGPT Edu provides access to ChatGPT, a generative AI assistant that can help with tasks such as drafting and revising documents, summarizing text, exploring ideas, generating images, and supporting research and administrative workflows.
Why use ChatGPT Edu instead of a personal account?
ChatGPT Edu is designed for institutional use and differs in important ways from free or personal versions of ChatGPT:
UW data protections: Prompts and content entered into ChatGPT Edu are not used to train OpenAI models and are handled under UW’s enterprise agreement.
- Purchasing can be done through Worktags
Single sign-on with UW NetID: Access is tied to your existing @uw.edu account.
Enterprise features enabled by default: Including conversation history, project-based workspaces, Canvas mode for interactive coding and writing, real-time web search, deep research tools, voice mode, and support for custom GPTs.
Shared institutional environment: Designed to support academic, research, and administrative use cases at UW.
Using ChatGPT Edu helps ensure that University-related work is done in a platform that aligns with UW’s privacy, security, and data stewardship expectations.
Important notes about availability and usage
ChatGPT Edu is currently offered as an experimental service through UWare. Its long-term availability is not guaranteed.
Some actions (such as deep research and advanced features) consume usage credits. The UW contract supports an average of 200 credits per user per month.
At this time, individuals cannot view their personal credit usage. UWare may contact users if usage is consistently excessive, and access may be limited if necessary.
About personal ChatGPT accounts
If you currently use ChatGPT with your @uw.edu email, you will be prompted to choose whether to:
Keep your personal workspace separate, or
Merge it into the UW ChatGPT Edu workspace
Please note that any data migrated into the EDU workspace becomes UW-managed. If you later lose access to the EDU workspace, you will also lose access to that migrated data.
What ChatGPT Edu does not include
ChatGPT Edu does not include API access. For AI-powered coding assistance and developer workflows, please see UW’s GitHub Copilot offering.
Additional details, including feature descriptions and credit usage information, are available on the ChatGPT Edu landing page.