With the fast advent and strong release of AI tools, educators are called to explore and integrate them into their academic life, while they also level up their digital literacy skills. However, to catch up with these defies at once might be overwhelming, given the fact that educational institutions are yet learning to embrace both the immersion and normalization of AI in their strategic plans, and teachers might either lack time, knowledge or motivation to fully endorse AI in their daily life. Such integration also suggests the recognition of possibilities in which AI offers new scenarios to adaptivity and personalization of learning as well as to the optimization of research and teaching. It is also an open door to learning new ways to reduce risks and biases on content generation and text production supported by automations, keeping in mind efficient data privacy and security management procedures. Not only, should educators and researchers be equipped to design routes that facilitate a gradual and effective integration of AI technologies to enrich their practice, but also, they should be empowered and supported by their institutions to enact change, focusing on global and local standards that promote a safe policy use of AI in the classroom, facilitate an equitable access to knowledge, and foster knowledge generation and dissemination across cultures. This presentation will address how the former breaches can be reduced, illustrating real-case practices of Latin American higher institutions, and drawing essential considerations for effective AI research and teaching.