Research-backed AI fluency work, built by a real faculty operator.
Dr. Ryan Baltrip • Founder, Navigate AI • Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing, Old Dominion University
Navigate AI was not built from generic AI enthusiasm. It emerged from multiple years of classroom experimentation, faculty development work, institutional observation, and longitudinal research on how students and educators actually learn to use AI well. The result is a set of practical frameworks, reports, certifications, and institutional solutions designed to help higher education move from scattered adoption to credible implementation.
Dr. Ryan Baltrip
Founder of Navigate AI. Clinical Assistant Professor of Marketing at Old Dominion University. E.V. Williams Fellow for AI in Teaching & Learning. Faculty researcher and strategist.
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From classroom signal to institutional system
Observe the gap
Students were already using AI. Faculty uncertainty was rising. Institutions were writing policy, but often without a developmental model for teaching better judgment.
Build the frameworks
Navigate AI’s core models began taking shape: TEACH, META, FAFI, the AI Fluency Map, SCALE, and the verification-centered approach behind the later reports.
Translate into products
Frameworks turned into certifications, toolkits, governance sprints, curriculum reviews, and structured institutional offers designed for real implementation.
Scale the thought leadership
The State of AI reports and broader business-facing work extend the same core idea: AI value depends on human judgment, verification, and implementation quality.
Navigate AI exists because implementation is where most institutions now get stuck.
The early phase of AI in higher education was mostly about reaction: panic, policy, experimentation, and tactical tool adoption. The next phase is harder. Leaders now have to decide how to build faculty fluency, support students, redesign courses, assess risk, and move from scattered use to coherent institutional strategy.
That is the problem Navigate AI is built to solve. The site, frameworks, certifications, and consulting offers all point back to the same conviction: AI integration is not primarily a technology problem. It is a human judgment, capability-building, and implementation design problem.
That framing is what connects the education work, the reports, the review tools, and even the business-side expansion. The theme is consistent: organizations need more than access to AI. They need better ways to evaluate, integrate, govern, and teach it.
The models behind the work
These frameworks are not separate intellectual ornaments. They are the operating logic behind Navigate AI’s certifications, institutional offers, reports, workshops, and reviews.
TEACH
A human-centered model for helping faculty integrate AI into teaching practice with more structure, confidence, and intentionality.
View TEACH →FAFI
The Faculty AI Fluency Index provides the developmental backbone for placement, growth measurement, and cohort design.
View FAFI →META
A structure for redesigning assignments and learning experiences around metacognition, ethics, tool use, and application.
View META →AI Fluency Map
A staged developmental map for helping students move from awareness to more capable and responsible AI use across domains.
View the map →SCALE
A leadership and implementation model for institutions trying to move from scattered experimentation to more coordinated action.
View SCALE →Productized offers
These frameworks become real services through CourseReady AI, governance sprints, student fluency initiatives, and institutional cohorts.
See solutions →A leader trusted by educators and institutions.
Over 1,000 leaders trained to use technology and AI more effectively in their organizations. Affiliations and appearances include the organizations below. No endorsement implied.
Bring the right kind of AI conversation to your campus.
Navigate AI works with institutional leaders, individual faculty, and conference organizers who need more than a workshop — they need a credible partner with original research, tested frameworks, and a clear implementation model. The right next step is usually a 30-minute conversation.
Book an institutional conversation
Best for provosts, deans, CTLs, online learning leaders, or innovation leaders exploring cohorts, sprints, or campus-wide AI capability building.
See institutional offers →Invite Ryan to speak or facilitate
A fit for keynote invitations, faculty development sessions, retreats, conference workshops, or executive briefings tied to AI in education or AI in business.
Request speaking availability →Use the reports as the entry point
A strong option for people who want to understand the work first through reports, essays, and frameworks before booking a conversation.
Browse reports and essays →