Competency-based nursing education, as defined by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 2021a), requires students to demonstrate practical, clinical, critical thinking, and introspective skills via a scaffolded web of assessments, instruction, individualized feedback, reflection, and reporting. A central element to this structure is scaffolding, which is contextually defined as an instructional framework intentionally designed by educators to support students' progression toward increasingly complex levels of knowledge, skill, and professional behavior (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Within a competency-based structure, both students and faculty members are tasked with taking an active role in education. Faculty members assume responsibility for expectation setting by mapping how all curricular, learning, and evaluative elements build on each other and link to AACN's (2021b) The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education. They serve as guides within the competency-building process, providing individualized feedback against the backdrop of the defined expectations. Further, they encourage students to reflect, grow, and reframe setbacks and challenges as opportunities to develop skills. On the other end, students are expected to match faculty engagement through study, practice, introspection, and collaboration (AACN, 2023). For this faculty-student relationship to reach its full potential, it is essential that curricular design elements support clear standard setting, consistent evaluative criteria, and instructional and assignment descriptions that provide Essentials-rooted rationales to facilitate student “buy-in.”

With the above insights in mind, it can be surmised that the success of the competency-based system is determined by the strength of its foundational design. For many programs, this means a critical evaluation of current structures, revisions, and thoughtful development of progression sequences that result in mastery of competency-based program outcomes. The AACN (2021a) suggests employing backward design in competency-based curricular efforts. Backward design describes a process in which educators focus on macro-level considerations, such as institutional mission and vision and programmatic outcomes (end-goal competencies), first, and then proceed to work backwards to develop assessments (evidence of competency and achievement) and learning experiences that work toward these defined assessments. A rapid review by Rinaldi et al. (2025) found that backward design in nursing education specifically supported alignment and integration of outcomes, assessments, and experiences while promoting engagement and faculty efficacy within the system. However, when one considers all the necessary steps involved in creating the competency-based system, including critically evaluating the existing program structure before any creating and revisions can begin, true backward design may be a time intensive process. Depending on the configuration of the nursing department, faculty members and administrators may be dividing their time between teaching, clinical, lab, simulation, and curricular responsibilities, which could provide further time constraints. When considering the process, educators begin to wonder how to navigate external timetables, work demands, and efficiency while ensuring the work is done well, given the critical importance of the structure? This article explores how artificial intelligence (AI) tools can be leveraged within this structure-building process to promote timely design and curricular transformation aligned with competency-based standards.