AI Ruins Multiple Graduation Ceremonies

This site has something of a bizarre and sad tradition this time of year. Since it’s graduation season, it’s very common that we are discussing at least one, often more, examples of commencement ceremony plagiarism.

Sometimes it’s a guest speaker, other times it’s the president of my alma mater, sometimes it’s the school valedictorian or another student. These stories are incredibly common and I’ve written so many of them that I’ve accidentally used the same stock image five years apart.

While there is something of an irony in plagiarism in a graduation ceremony speech, each of these stories features hundreds, if not thousands, of students who had their special moment marred by plagiarism. It is deeply unfair to the graduates who worked hard for their degrees and were denied the moment they deserved.

Fortunately, so far this May, there’s been a relative dearth of such stories. As of this writing, there have been no major stories about graduation speakers plagiarizing their speeches. 

Instead, there is a new unwanted guest, AI. 

All across the country, AI appeared in speeches, in conversations and even in embarrassing mistakes, almost always to a universal chorus of boos and jeers. Students made it very clear that AI was not welcome in their big moment and some schools paid a serious price by trying to bring it in regardless.

Here’s a recap of the graduation season (so far) when it comes to AI.

AI Gets Booed

By far the biggest headline involved former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. He spoke at the University of Arizona graduation ceremony and mentioned AI multiple times, describing AI as a technology revolution similar to the computer itself. 

However, his mentions of AI were repeatedly booed by the graduating seniors. Though he recognized the boos, he pressed on with his speech, continuing to extol AI as a revolution, likening it to a rocket ship that people needed to get on board with. 

But, while Schmidt dominated the headlines, he was not the only commencement speaker to be booed for statements about AI. At the University of Central Florida, real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was similarly booed for comparing AI to “the next Industrial Revolution.” 

Similarly at Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Media and Entertainment, Big Machine Records founder and CEO Scott Borchetta was also booed for saying that AI was a “tool and that we mustn’t be afraid of it.” He pushed back against students, saying “Deal with it. Like I said, it’s a tool. Hey, you can hear me now or you can pay me later.”

Across the board, AI received a cold shoulder from graduating seniors. However, the worst was likely the schools that attempted to use AI in the ceremony itself.

AI Name Readers

One of the more tedious but important jobs at a graduation ceremony is the reading of graduate names. One college, Glendale Community College, attempted to hand the task over to an AI system. Unfortunately, it did not go well.

In what has become one of the biggest low points of the 2026 spring graduation season, the AI system faltered, resulting in dozens of students not having their names read and mispronouncing others. Many of those students were not able to walk the stage with their names heard, and others had to deal with a ceremony that was paused as the task was moved to a human reader.

But while the school’s president, Tiffany Hernandez, explained the issue, once again boos rained down. This produced what is now one of the most viral and memorable moments from the season.

But Glendale was far from the only school to consider or use AI name readers. At Columbia University, students protested the use of AI name readers at the 19 ceremonies for the individual schools and colleges. It was the second year Columbia had used AI readers at the event, saying it helped things run smoothly. No names are read at the unified ceremony.

In Salt Lake City, students petitioned local high schools to not use the AI name reader Tassel. One school dropped its plans and another moved forward. A similar backlash happened in Plano, Texas, with students saying that they missed the human factor of having their name called. 

Finally, last year at Pace University, students likened the graduation ceremony to a “supermarket self-checkout” after the school used AI name readers that required students to scan a bar code to have their name read. 

Even when the systems haven’t failed, they’ve been disappointing, with many students missing the human connection of having a live person read their name. 

One Positive AI Mention

All of this said, there was one graduation speaker who mentioned AI and received a positive response. 

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian spoke to graduation seniors at Emory University. There, he admitted that he had used AI to draft his speech “out of curiosity” and, despite being impressed with the technology, ultimately threw the speech away and put pencil to paper.

He said, “I also noticed the lack of soul nor warmth it conveyed. It was not my personal voice, and it did not express my genuine appreciation for the opportunity to impart my insights to thousands of you. You want to hear from me, not some algorithm of me.”

He went on to say that shortcuts, though tempting, “never yield an enduring result or an effective solution.” He concluded by saying that a person’s name and reputation is their brand and that is something you can only build with quality work.

That speech received an overall positive response from the students and families in the crowd. It’s a message that seemed to resonate much more strongly with the graduating seniors.

Bottom Line

Right now, there is a widespread belief, even among educators, that students are using AI as a substitute for learning, sacrificing critical thinking and original writing for AI-powered shortcuts. That may be, and likely is, still true.

But these recent graduation ceremonies remind us that the picture is still very complicated. Students, like any large group of people, are not a monolith. Though I have no doubt that many have used AI to skate their way through school without applying themselves, there are also many who are just as fed up with AI as much of the non-student public is.

To be clear, nothing in this probably represents a major shift in the way educators should think about AI in the classroom, whatever that thinking is. At the end of the day, these are just a handful of anecdotes. While from a wide variety of schools, the plural of anecdote is still not data.

Still, it’s a nice reminder that students have many of the same fears, concerns, and aggravations about AI that many others have. The same energy that has users referring to Microsoft as MicroSlop exists both in and out of the classroom.

In fact, these stories turn the dynamic on its head. Here we see schools embracing AI, both in the form of speakers and technology, as students protest the inclusion.

So, to that end, there are two morals to this graduation season. First, schools need to be cautious about embracing AI and recognize that students may not welcome it with open arms. Second, that not all students are excited about or embracing AI themselves. 

In fact, it seems that many will actively make their displeasure known, even on one of their biggest days.