ASU has been described by Crow as a "Fifth Wave" university based on its digital immersion, cost efficiency, and scalability. ASU also disproves the long-standing notion that academic excellence and accessibility are mutually exclusive, by reaching over 180,000 students while conducting world-class research solving significant global challenges. The scaling only multiplies ASU’s impact in research. As Crow puts it “on a person for person basis, we're producing five times as many graduates and doing 10 times the level of research that we were doing in the past with quality enhancements in both the faculty of about the same size.”

Crow describes the evolution of ASU’s online learning as the culmination of “five realms of learning,” which include an immersion in a tech-enhanced campus, digital immersion online, massively scaled open technology learning, technology-enhanced education through exploration, and a fifth “infinitely scalable” form of learning. The key distinction for ASU, according to Crow, is “at the heart of ASU is a research grade university,” that can “use all of those realms of learning to project out the force of the university.” With the advent of artificial intelligence, ASU is expanding to a new stage extending Crow’s Fifth Wave model to new limits. “What we're learning is that the university community itself can be more than just a teaching, learning and discovery location.” Crow further describes the AI-powered ASU as “a neural network node of an AI enhanced learning asset.”