ChatGPT in Higher Education and Sustainable Development Goals : A Comparative Study of Institutional Perspectives from Developing and Developed Economies

Abstract

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies—specifically Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT) represents an innovative potential across diverse organizational and managerial levels, including higher education. ChatGPT contributes towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in several ways by enabling scalable, personalized learning and lowering barriers to equitable access to quality education. However, regardless of its promising capabilities, existing research discourse reveals a notable gap in investigating how differing institutional factors not only influence ChatGPT's adoption, but also how these factors shape progress towards key SDGs. By drawing on Institutional Theory and the Technology-Organization-Environment framework, the qualitative data were collected through 24 semi-structured faculty interviews across developing and developed countries. The data was analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke's six-step approach. The findings reveal divergent adoption patterns shaped by distinct institutional factors, and these differences carry notable implications for achieving SDGs, particularly related to quality education (SDG-4), reducing inequalities (SDG-10), and institutional strength (SDG-16). © 2026 The Author(s). Sustainable Development published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.