Graduates in caps and gowns have increasingly met commencement speeches about artificial intelligence with boos, according to the Associated Press reporting, as students weigh how rapidly AI is reshaping careers, classes and job searches. The disruptions described in recent ceremonies suggest that for some students, the AI subject has moved beyond curiosity to a source of anxiety—one they are willing to express publicly at the start of their next phase.
At the University of Arizona, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced repeated jeers during his keynote address to about 10,000 graduates, after he began discussing how AI could affect work and daily life. Schmidt told the audience, “It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have,” as booing began to build, the AP reported.
When the jeering continued, Schmidt responded, saying, “I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” and describing what he said was a fear among the generation he was addressing. The AP report said he added, “There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating … and I understand that fear,” as the boos rose.
In an interview cited by the AP, Olivia Malone, a 22-year-old University of Arizona graduate bound for law school, described the moment as disrespectful to students. Malone said, “His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” and added that students are discouraged from using AI in classes and penalized for using it—while the keynote speaker was positioned as “the champion of AI,” a framing she questioned.
The AP report also linked the campus reaction to polls showing growing concern about AI’s impact on employment. It cited a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School that found about 70% of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects, and it also referenced a Gallup survey of Gen Z youth and adults, ages 14 to 29, that found increasingly negative attitudes toward AI as excitement and hopefulness declined from a year earlier.
The reported commencement disruptions were not limited to one speech. Another keynote speaker, Gloria Caulfield, a real estate executive, faced boos at the University of Central Florida after highlighting the advent of artificial intelligence, with the AP describing the reaction as surprising. At Middle Tennessee State University, the AP reported that music executive Scott Borchetta drew boos during his commencement remarks about how AI is reshaping the music industry, with Borchetta telling the graduating class, “AI is rewriting production as we sit here,” and adding that it was “a tool” for students to make “work for you.”
The AP also described students who said these messages did not match what they are experiencing in school and work. Malone said Schmidt’s remarks felt “like a big advertisement” and compared them to an extended prompt for AI, while also noting that Schmidt’s name appears in a tranche of files tied to financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—an item the AP said should not be treated as proof of wrongdoing by itself.
Other graduates pointed to the timing of the AI discussion, arguing that they were already facing a difficult job market. The AP said the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 has reached its highest level in a dozen years, and it cited Sami Wargo, who graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, where she said an AI expert was the undergraduate commencement speaker despite a student petition that demanded the school find someone else.
Wargo, a digital media and advertising student, told the AP that the decision felt “tone deaf” in light of AI’s perceived threat to jobs for her graduating class. She said she and other students booed Chris Duffey, described by the AP as an AI evangelist at Adobe who took the stage, and she said she applied for around 30 jobs without landing one. The AP report said many job descriptions required applicants to “collaborate with AI,” while Wargo said she did not understand what that meant and noted that most of her classes banned her from using AI.
The AP reporting placed the episode amid broader uncertainty about how students should prepare for an economy where AI use can be both expected and restricted. FRED’s official unemployment rate (U-3) at the May 19, 2026 vintage was 4.3, underscoring that students are stepping into an uneven labor environment while they seek clarity on which skills will remain valuable as AI becomes more common in everyday work.