{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,21]],"date-time":"2026-10-21T05:38:34Z","timestamp":1792561114435,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,21]],"date-time":"2026-10-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792540800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Educ."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Inclusive education is a strategic priority for higher education institutions worldwide, driven by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and national reform agendas. In Kuwait, universities are adopting AI-enabled learning technologies at pace, yet existing scholarship treats AI adoption, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), responsible AI governance and institutional digital transformation as separate lines of enquiry rather than as interacting institutional capabilities \u2014 and largely without engaging the critical literature that questions whether AI adoption strengthens or erodes educational equity in the first place. This paper closes that gap. Through a conceptual, six-stage framework-development process, it synthesises literature on AI in education, learning analytics, inclusive pedagogy, digital transformation and critical education-technology studies to build an explicit theoretical interaction model: AI operationalises UDL, UDL constrains which AI applications are appropriate, Responsible AI governs the technology, Systems and Institutional Theory explain institutional adoption, and a critical counter-current cautions against treating any of this as automatic. Building on this model and a systematic literature-to-pillar derivation, the paper proposes the AI-Enabled Universal Design for Learning (AI-UDL) Framework \u2014 five interdependent pillars (institutional leadership, AI-enabled UDL, a responsible AI ecosystem, faculty capacity building, and continuous evaluation) \u2014 and validates it against the CAST UDL Guidelines 3.0, UNESCO's AI guidance, the OECD Digital Education Outlook, SDG 4, the UNCRPD and Kuwait Vision 2035, distinguishing conceptual (face) validity from the construct and content validity a future empirical programme would need to establish. The paper offers a context-specific conceptual analysis linking AI, UDL and inclusive higher education within Kuwait and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), together with stakeholder-specific policy recommendations, an implementation maturity model, and a research agenda for empirically testing the framework.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/feduc.2026.1934276","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,21]],"date-time":"2026-10-21T04:42:55Z","timestamp":1792557775000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Artificial intelligence and universal design for learning in Kuwait\u2019s higher education institutions: towards an AI-enabled framework for inclusive education"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Abdullah F.","family":"Alenezi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Business Studies, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET)","place":["Kuwait City, Kuwait"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","year":"2024"},{"key":"B2","year":"2025"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"39","DOI":"10.14434\/josotl.v16i3.19295","article-title":"Universal design for learning (UDL): a content analysis of peer-reviewed journal papers from 2012 to 2015","volume":"16","author":"Al-Azawei","year":"2016","journal-title":"J. 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