Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity in Kazakhstani Academia: Faculty and Administrators’ Perspectives on Teaching, Research, and Governance

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming widely embedded in higher education, yet little is known about how its opportunities and challenges are experienced in transitional higher education systems. This study examines faculty and administrators’ perspectives on the use of AI in teaching, research, and academic governance in Kazakhstan. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 42 faculty members and administrators from universities and research organizations, the study uses interpretive description and reflexive thematic analysis. The findings show that AI functions as an ambivalent academic shortcut. Participants valued its capacity to support translation, literature searches, academic writing, programming, teaching preparation, and access to international knowledge, while raising concerns about academic misconduct, dependency, misinformation, weakened critical thinking, unclear authorship, and uneven institutional capacity to regulate its use. Drawing on the concepts of ambivalence and organized immaturity, the study highlights the risk that reliance on AI may weaken epistemic agency while simultaneously expanding access to academic resources. The findings emphasize the importance of clear and context-sensitive AI policies, transparent disclosure practices, redesigned assessment, faculty development, and investment in Kazakh-language AI capacity.