Graduates are booing pep talks about artificial intelligence at commencement ceremonies as speakers try to address the rapid shift AI is bringing to work and education, the Associated Press reported. In multiple campus events, students interrupted keynotes when the subject turned to AI and its implications for career prospects.
The pattern emerged as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt delivered the keynote at the University of Arizona’s commencement for about 10,000 graduates on the rise of AI, AP said. Schmidt told the audience that AI “will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have,” as boos began to build in the crowd. As the jeering continued, AP reported that Schmidt responded: “I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” and that 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.”
AP quoted Olivia Malone, a 22-year-old University of Arizona graduate bound for law school, describing Schmidt’s remarks as tone deaf. Malone said, “His speech was incredibly disrespectful to students,” and that students are discouraged from using AI and penalized for using it, only to hear the keynote speaker present AI as a champion.
The Associated Press said similar reactions followed other commencement keynotes that touched on AI. At the University of Central Florida, real estate executive Gloria Caulfield faced boos when she highlighted what she called “the next industrial revolution” during a keynote described by AP as this month’s ceremony. AP reported that Caulfield, vice president of strategic alliances at the Tavistock Development Company in Orlando, said, “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” and then asked, “What happened?” before telling the audience that “Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives,” and that AI capabilities are now “in the palm of our hand.”
AP also reported that music executive Scott Borchetta received boos at Middle Tennessee State University after telling the graduating class, “AI is rewriting production as we sit here.” AP said Borchetta told the students, “I know it. Deal with it … Do something about it. It’s a tool. Make it work for you,” and that Schmidt offered a similar message, telling students their fear is rational while emphasizing they can shape how AI develops. AP reported that Malone said the advice did not land well and described Schmidt’s speech as more self-serving than inspirational, adding that his name appears in a tranche of files on millionaire financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
AP’s account also links the backlash to broader labor and hiring uncertainty graduates are navigating. The Associated Press said the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 has reached its highest level in a dozen years, and it also cited graduates who described struggling to find work. The story included the perspective of Sami Wargo, who recently graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, where AP said an AI expert served as the undergraduate commencement speaker despite a student petition calling for someone else. Wargo told AP that, given the perceived threat from AI to jobs, students considered it “a little bit tone deaf,” and she said she and other students joined in booing a speaker at the ceremony.
AP further reported that Wargo had applied for around 30 jobs without landing one and described job descriptions telling applicants to “collaborate with AI,” while she said she did not know what that meant. She also described class policies restricting AI use and said it felt like a “little dent in what was supposed to be a celebratory day.” Another speaker in the AP account, Chris Duffey, an AI evangelist at Adobe who described using AI to “co-author” a book titled “Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence,” told graduates, “Innovation … will reveal what can be done, but only you can decide what should be done,” according to AP.
The broader campus reactions also reflect students’ views measured in polls. AP said that about 70% of college students view AI as a threat to their job prospects, citing a 2025 poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. AP also said a recent Gallup poll of Gen Z youth and adults ages 14 to 29 found increasingly negative attitudes toward AI, with anger rising since a year ago and hopefulness declining, even as about half of Gen Z teens and adults reported using AI daily or weekly.