As universities race to provide generative AI access to students and faculty, the cost of commercial subscriptions at institutional scale quickly becomes unsustainable. At Boise State University, we built
boisestate.ai—an open source AI platform powered by AWS Bedrock. This presentation shares the practical lessons learned from developing and operating the platform, including the consumption-based paradigm shift associated with pay-per-token pricing, seven specific cost optimization strategies (from prompt caching to semantic tool filtering), and approaches for making AI institutionally aware through MCP servers and agent skills. We'll also discuss why 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the AI agent, and how progressive disclosure and codified institutional knowledge are key to building AI that doesn't just chat — but actually gets work done for your campus.
