Only three major-university AI degree milestones have a defensible public date in the retrieved record
The search surfaced eight major US universities with a standalone degree explicitly named for artificial intelligence. Carnegie Mellon is the earliest documented launch, in fall 2018; Penn has the earliest retrieved formal announcement, on 15 February 2024. Dates for five institutions could not be tied to a reliable announcement page and are left blank rather than guessed.
What the dates show
Carnegie Mellon moved first. Its BS in Artificial Intelligence began in fall 2018 and is described as the first US bachelor’s degree of its kind. autonainews.com
Penn supplied the clearest formal announcement. Penn Engineering announced its BSE in Artificial Intelligence on 15 February 2024 for a fall 2024 start. upenn.edu
The next clearly dated expansion is Syracuse. Its college announced bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Artificial Intelligence Science on 4 June 2026 for fall 2026. syracuse.edu
The defensible shortlist
| University | Named AI degree(s) | Announcement / milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carnegie Mellon University | BS in Artificial Intelligence | Fall 2018 launch | autonainews.com |
| University of Pennsylvania | BSE in Artificial Intelligence; online MSE-AI | 2024-02-15 | upenn.edu |
| Syracuse University | BS and MS in Artificial Intelligence Science | 2026-06-04 | syracuse.edu |
| University of Texas at Austin | Online MS in Artificial Intelligence | Not resolved | aigraduate.org |
| Johns Hopkins University | Online MS in Artificial Intelligence | Not resolved | aigraduate.org |
| University of Kentucky | BS in Artificial Intelligence | Fall 2026 launch; announcement unresolved | remio.ai |
| University of Tennessee–Knoxville | BS in Artificial Intelligence | Not resolved | edsmart.org |
| Northeastern University | BS in Artificial Intelligence | Not resolved | hoodline.com |
Method: 591 broad pages plus 766 undergraduate-focused and 778 graduate-focused search results were scanned on 24 August 2026. Institutions were filtered to prominent US universities and standalone credentials explicitly bearing “Artificial Intelligence”; a date means a retrieved announcement date, except CMU’s explicitly labeled launch term. “Not resolved” means no defensible announcement date was found in the retrieved pages.