Dr Shalinka Jayatilleke was an early adopter of ChatGPT, not because it was novel, but because she could see how quickly it would change the classroom.
As a Senior Lecturer in AI and Analytics at La Trobe University and Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Business Analytics, Dr Jayatilleke watched students begin to experiment with generative AI tools almost as soon as they became widely available. Her response was not to shut the door on them. She saw generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, as “the new calculator”: a technology that students would need to understand, not avoid.
“We need to get them trained on how to use it properly, rather than trying to restrict them,” Dr Jayatilleke says.
Those questions now sit at the centre of her work:
How should students, universities, and organisations use AI in ways that are useful, fair, and responsible?
How can graduates enter workplaces ready to work with AI tools, without mistaking quick output for good thinking?
How can institutions build policies that respond to AI without simply policing it?
Dr Jayatilleke’s research spans AI, data analytics, software requirements, and digital transformation. Her background is deeply technical: a Bachelor’s degree in computer systems engineering followed by a PhD in computer science, plus years teaching technical subjects. But her current work is just as concerned with people as it is with systems.
One major focus is generative AI in higher education. Dr Jayatilleke is studying how AI can be embedded meaningfully in teaching, including for neurodivergent students. She says research on students with disabilities has often focused on areas such as hearing or vision impairment, while neurodivergent students have received less attention – despite being a significant cohort in universities.
Her other key focus is AI governance: the policies, standards, and ethical frameworks that guide how universities use AI.
As part of the 7th ASEF Higher Education Innovation Laboratory (ASEFInnoLab7) – a global initiative that gathers experts to develop ethical AI frameworks for universities – Dr Jayatilleke is coordinating an international project comparing how universities in Asia, Europe, and Australia are responding to generative AI. The work asks whether institutions are thinking broadly enough across teaching, assessment, research, student support, equity, data privacy, and public trust.
“We’re not trying to police AI,” she says. “People are already using it. The question is how universities respond.”
Where AI literacy meets practice
For Dr Jayatilleke, AI literacy means helping students build the judgement to use emerging tools well, even as the tools themselves keep changing.
In the Bachelor of Business Analytics, she and her colleagues are working to build that capability across the course. While students need to understand how to write effective prompts, they also need to know how to assess the answers they get back, she stresses. A clear, confident output is not necessarily accurate or useful.
Dr Jayatilleke says employers increasingly expect graduates to arrive ready to work with AI systems, which are part of how many workplaces now operate. And her work spans both sides of that shift: preparing students for AI-enabled workplaces, and helping industry partners rethink how those workplaces operate.
For example, Dr Jayatilleke is currently working with Core dna, an e-commerce and digital experience company, on AI agents and workplace productivity through an industry-funded PhD project and related consultancy. The work has already produced a paper accepted for RecSys 2026, a competitive international recommender-systems conference that accepts fewer than one in five submissions. It explores how agents could support hyper-personalised digital experiences, helping businesses tailor recommendations, content, or next steps for different users based on their needs and context.
But Dr Jayatilleke is careful about the word productivity, which can be misunderstood when using a tool designed to generate a large volume of work, quickly.
The real question, she says, is whether AI helps people work more effectively, think more strategically, and make stronger decisions.
Dr Jayatilleke wants students to leave university ready to meet industry where it is, with the judgement to use AI well and the professional capability to work without it when needed.
“Generative AI is just another tool,” she says. “You still need to know what you’re doing.”
Connect with Dr Shalinka Jayatilleke
La Trobe Profile
Email: S.Jayatilleke@latrobe.edu.au
Dr Jayatilleke spoke at a recent La Trobe Innovation Series event, AI Innovation to Impact. To stay up to date on future La Trobe Industry events, articles, and news, subscribe to the Industry newsletter or Follow ‘La Trobe Industry’ on LinkedIn and Eventbrite.
