As higher education institutions worldwide strive to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key enabler of sustainable innovation. This study explores the behavioral pathways influencing AI adoption in public universities across the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a region at the forefront of digital transformation and educational sustainability. Anchored in a behavioral intention framework, the research investigates how performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, attitude, and perceived risk shape academic staff’s intention to adopt AI, with behavioral intention functioning as a mediating variable. Data were collected from 381 academic staff members using a simple random sampling method and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, and attitude significantly impact behavioral intention, which in turn drives AI adoption. In contrast, perceived risk did not yield a significant effect. These findings highlight the need to address both technological enablers and user perceptions to promote sustainable AI integration in higher education. The study contributes to the ongoing discourse on digital innovation for sustainability, offering practical insights for institutional leaders and policymakers aiming to build agile, future-ready academic ecosystems.