Getting Started with AI at MSU

Welcome. If you are new to AI — or new to MSU and wondering what is officially supported — this is the page to start with. Five minutes here saves a lot of guessing later.

The summary: you already have access to powerful, MSU-licensed AI tools through your NetID. You don't need a personal subscription, and you shouldn't use one for university work. Once you know which tool to open, the rest is practice.

Five things to know on day one

1. Sign in with your netid@msstate.edu account. Every MSU-licensed AI tool — Microsoft Copilot, Claude, Gemini, and others — recognizes your NetID and keeps your work inside MSU's tenant. A personal Gmail-based ChatGPT account is not an MSU tool, even if you only use it for work.
2. Use MSU-licensed tools for any university data. Student information, personnel matters, draft communications, contracts, research notes — all of it belongs in tools MSU has contracted for, not in free consumer tools that may train on your inputs.
3. AI drafts; you decide. AI is excellent at first drafts, summaries, brainstorming, and explaining unfamiliar material. It is not reliable as a final decision-maker. Verify names, dates, citations, and policy details before you act on them.
4. Start small and concrete. Pick one task this week — summarize a long email thread, draft a meeting agenda, explain a concept you're rusty on — and do it with AI. Real fluency comes from use, not from reading.
5. When in doubt about data, pause. FERPA-protected student records and HIPAA-protected health information have stricter rules. If you're unsure whether a piece of information belongs in an AI tool, see the set of Guidance documents.
6. Read the rules The essentials for everyone, AI Guidance at MSU

What you already have access to

Your NetID gives you access to MSU's enterprise-licensed AI tools at no cost to you. The exact lineup evolves — see the MSU AI Tools page for the current list — but the core options today include:

• Microsoft Copilot — built into the Microsoft 365 apps you already use (Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint). Best starting point for most faculty and staff because it's already there.
• Gemini (Google) — Google's AI assistant, available to MSU users with the appropriate license.

If your team needs the premium/agentic tier of any of these or with Claude (Anthropic), that is a conversation to have with your supervisor — see the MSU AI Tools page for what's available.

A simple first week

Try three small tasks.

• Day 1 — Try Copilot in Outlook or Teams. Ask it to summarize a long email thread or a meeting you missed. This is the easiest possible win and shows you what AI feels like inside your day.
• Day 2 or 3 — Draft something with AI. A meeting agenda, a project status update, a reply to a tricky email. Write the prompt the way you'd brief a new staff member: what you want, who it's for, and what tone.
• Later in the week — Try a second tool. If you started with Copilot, try Gemini. Notice what each is better at. Most people end up using two tools regularly.

By the end of the week, you'll have a sense of whether AI fits naturally into one or two of your tasks. That's the goal — not to use it for everything, but to find the handful of places where it makes a real difference.

Join the MSU AI Community

You'll learn faster — and have more fun — alongside other people on campus figuring this out at the same time. The MSU AI Community is a Microsoft Teams space where faculty, staff, and students share what's working, ask questions, and post resources across topics like instruction, research, operations, and policy.

How to join:

1. Open Microsoft Teams (desktop app or teams.microsoft.com) and sign in with your netid@msstate.edu account.
2. In the left sidebar, click Teams, then Join or create a team at the bottom.
3. In the search box, type MSU AI Community. Enter the Joining Code nzuyrtl, and click Join team.
4. Once you're in, browse the channels (General, Instruction, Research, and others) and introduce yourself in General. No prior AI experience needed — questions are welcome.

If the team doesn't show up in search, it may be set to require a request — reach out to your AI Hub contact or post on the MSU AI Hub site for an invite.

A note on getting comfortable

Most people overestimate how quickly they should be "good" at AI and underestimate how much value the basics already deliver. You do not need to learn prompt engineering before using Copilot to summarize a meeting. You do not need to read a textbook before asking Claude to explain something unfamiliar. Start where you are. Use it on real work.

Most people underestimate the wide variety of tasks AI can do. Especially if you have premium, paid accounts, give it harder and harder tasks to do.

Try at least 1 new task each day and you'll be up to speed in no time.