Abstract

This study evaluates how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is being integrated into administrative workflows across Nigerian higher education institutions, and whether that integration actually improves efficiency, accuracy and service quality. Drawing on survey responses from 312 administrative staff and academics across twelve federal, state and private universities, alongside eight semi-structured interviews, the research adopts a mixed-methods design anchored in the Technology–Organisation–Environment (TOE) framework and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The findings show uneven but growing adoption: GenAI tools are most heavily used for correspondence, admissions processing and student records, and least used for financial and scheduling tasks. Respondents reported statistically significant improvements in turnaround time and perceived service satisfaction after adopting GenAI, though gains in data accuracy were more modest. Unreliable power and internet infrastructure, subscription costs, weak digital skills and the near-total absence of institutional AI policy emerged as the dominant barriers. The paper argues that GenAI in Nigerian higher education administration is currently a bottom-up, improvised phenomenon rather than a governed strategy, and it sets out practical recommendations for policy, capacity-building and infrastructure investment.