Generative AI (GenAI) tools, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini, are rapidly reshaping higher education by transforming how students, educators, and researchers engage with learning, teaching, and academic work. Despite their growing presence, the adoption of GenAI remains inconsistent, largely due to the absence of universal guidelines and trust-related concerns. This study examines how trust, defined across three key dimensions (accuracy and relevance, privacy protection, and nonmaliciousness), influences the adoption and use of GenAI tools in academic environments. Using survey data from 823 participants across different academic roles, this study employs multiple regression analysis to explore the relationship between trust, user characteristics, and behavioral intention. The results reveal that trust is primarily experience-driven. Frequency of use, duration of use, and self-assessed proficiency significantly predict trust, whereas demographic factors, such as gender and academic role, have no significant influence. Furthermore, trust emerges as a strong predictor of behavioral intention to adopt GenAI tools. These findings reinforce trust calibration theory and extend the UTAUT2 framework to the context of GenAI in education. This study highlights that fostering appropriate trust through transparent policies, privacy safeguards, and practical training is critical for enabling responsible, ethical, and effective integration of GenAI into higher education.

A significant portion of the academic community, including students, teachers, and researchers, has incorporated generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools into their everyday tasks. Alongside increased productivity and numerous benefits, specific challenges that are fundamental to maintaining academic integrity and excellence must be addressed. This paper examines whether ethical implications related to copyrights and authorship, transparency, responsibility, and academic integrity influence the usage of GenAI tools in higher education, with emphasis on differences across academic segments. The findings, based on a survey of 883 students, teachers, and researchers at University North in Croatia, reveal significant differences in ethical awareness across academic roles, gender, and experience with GenAI tools. Teachers and researchers demonstrated the highest awareness of ethical principles, personal responsibility, and potential negative consequences, while students—particularly undergraduates—showed lower levels, likely due to limited exposure to structured ethical training. Gender differences were also significant, with females consistently demonstrating higher awareness across all ethical dimensions compared to males. Longer experience with GenAI tools was associated with greater ethical awareness, emphasizing the role of familiarity in fostering understanding. Although strong correlations were observed between ethical dimensions, their connection to future adoption was weaker, highlighting the need to integrate ethical education with practical strategies for responsible GenAI tool use.