AI x Higher Ed Podcast

A focused deep dive on how AI is already reshaping the job market—and why higher education can’t afford to treat this as a distant, abstract future. Drawing on recent reporting and high-profile predictions, the hosts unpack early signals (from law firm restructuring to software “plugins” replacing SaaS workflows), argue that knowledge work and entry-level roles are most exposed, and explain why sp...

What if 'career readiness' wasn’t a slogan—but a real job? In this episode, we talk with Joe McBreen, Assistant Superintendent of Innovation for St. Vrain Valley Schools (Colorado), about building a preschool–12 innovation center that operates like an R&D lab for public education. Students 'test drive' careers through pathways like AI, cybersecurity, drones, underwater robotics...

February is already moving fast. In this update, we tackle three threads that are suddenly converging: the shifting definition (and perception) of AGI, the emergence of autonomous “always-on” agent systems like OpenClaw, and a new safety report’s warning that AI may accelerate a K-shaped economy. We break down a recent Nature commentary arguing that AI may already demonstrate human-level reasoning...

Higher education is facing a multi-front disruption: long-term enrollment declines, a shattered “college for all” consensus, rising cost and debt anxieties, demographic contraction, and now AI accelerating the pressure—especially around assessment and trust. In this episode, futurist and higher ed analyst Bryan Alexander joins us to unpack his new book "Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Loom...

It’s the January 29 AI Update for the AI x Higher Ed podcast—and the theme is simple: AI is moving from “chat” to “do.”Stephan breaks down Moltbot (formerly “Claudebot”)—an open-source, agentic assistant you can run on your own machine or a private server, complete with persistent memory, recurring tasks, and messaging-app workflows (Telegram/WhatsApp). Then the conversation turns to Claude Co-Wor...

Sean O’Brien (Associate Vice President at Internet2) joins the show to unpack what it really takes to scale AI across higher education—beyond the hype and beyond the chatbot. Drawing on Internet2’s work supporting 600+ research and higher ed institutions, Shawn explains why the most successful AI outcomes tend to be bottom-up, why “AI enthusiasm” often turns into an unfunded mandate, and why **cul...

It’s the AI x Higher Ed update for January 21, 2026—and the signal coming out of Davos is loud: leaders from DeepMind to JPMorgan are openly framing AI as a civilization-transforming shift, with job disruption arriving faster than most institutions are ready for. In this episode, we unpack the emerging “timeline consensus” around AGI, why agentic AI (doers, not chatbots) is changing work right now...

What happens when you stop asking educators how AI is changing learning—and ask students instead? In this episode, four students (two high schoolers and two college students) take the mic to share how they’re using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity as tutors, collaborators, research assistants, and creative partners—for debate, coding, productivity, and real life. They also get ca...

In the first wave of ChatGPT, higher ed fixated on cheating, detectors, and academic integrity panic. But as AI fatigue sets in—for faculty and students—something interesting is happening: the conversation is finally maturing. Dr. Jason Gulya (Berkeley College) joins the podcast to argue for a more human-centered path forward: treat AI as a push, not the focus; stop offloading every new challenge...

Happy 2026—AI x Higher Ed is back with a fast-moving “state of the semester” briefing on what’s already changing, what’s accelerating, and what higher education should do next. We unpack the shift from “vibe coding” to one-shot coding, why agentic workflows are starting to act autonomously (sometimes weirdly autonomously), and what it means when the most capable models are more powerful than most...

In this semester-in-review episode, the hosts step back to reflect on what the first months of the podcast have revealed about the accelerating pace of artificial intelligence—and why higher education sits at the center of this transformation. From the rapid evolution of frontier models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok) to breakthroughs in multimodality, world models, robotics, and workplace automat...

Higher education is confronting one of the biggest identity crises in its history — but according to Patrick Dempsey, AI didn’t create the crisis so much as expose the weaknesses that were already there. Patrick, who works at the intersection of human learning and artificial intelligence, joins us for one of the most provocative conversations we’ve had on the podcast. He argues that universities a...

As Google rolls out Gemini 3 and its Nano “banana” model across Search, images, and apps, the ground is shifting again for AI in education. In this episode, we unpack what’s actually new, why many see Gemini 3 as the current front-runner, and how Google’s tight integration across Search, Workspace, and AI Studio could reshape how students and educators work. We walk through real examples—rich visu...

In this episode, we talk with Dan Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of District C, to explore how education must evolve to meet the demands of an AI-accelerated workforce. Gonzalez argues that as automation reshapes the labor market, human value will increasingly center on collaboration, coordinated problem-solving, and team-based innovation. He shares how District C’s teamship model builds these durab...

In this week’s update, we do something different: instead of racing through a dozen new AI releases, we go deep on a single tool that is quietly becoming one of the most powerful platforms for academic work—Notebook LM.Built on Google’s Gemini models, Notebook LM acts as a virtual research assistant, teaching assistant, and study companion all in one. We walk through how it reduces hallucinations...

A fast-paced roundup on the AI x Higher Ed Podcast covering the global AI infrastructure race, emerging creator tools students can use today, shifting labor signals, and what all of this means for classrooms, campuses, and careers. We also touch on model advances, robots, privacy, and the hard realities of jobs in transition—ending with a call for human skills and community to anchor AI literacy....

In this riveting interview from the AI x Higher Ed Podcast, co-founder of DebaterHub, John Hines, delves into the transformative power of AI in education and the surprising findings from their NSF-funded research. Discover how their autonomous debating system achieves superhuman performance in policy debate, far surpassing even the most advanced consumer AI models. But beyond the technological mar...

Educators keep asking the wrong question—which tool should my students use? MIT Lincoln Lab veteran Dr. Tim Dasey (https://www.linkedin.com/in/timdasey/) argues we should first teach how thinking and learning work (for humans and machines), then use AI intentionally. In this candid conversation, he lays out a practical roadmap for schools: measure what matters, move from waterfall to agile change,...

AI isn’t just another classroom tool—it’s a general-purpose technology that’s reshaping the world our students are entering. In this candid conversation, Prof. Mairéad Pratschke (internationally recognized authority in digital education and AI) argues that higher ed doesn’t need to defend its existence—it needs to redefine its purpose, its pace, and its practices. What we cover:- Why “AI ≠ edtech”...

PennWest’s Dr. Camille Dempsey (Director, PennWest Center for Artificial Intelligence & Emerging Technologies) joins us to talk about launching an AI center at speed, empowering rural and urban communities, and keeping human judgment at the core of AI-enabled learning. We dig into her upcoming book Once Upon a Chatbot: Fairy Tales about Artificial Intelligence, the student ambassador model, ce...

AI’s Tipping Point in Higher Education: Agency, Equity, and Urgent Change“Avoidance—both at individual and institutional levels—is no longer possible.”Is your campus ready for the AI revolution—or waiting for someone else to figure it out? Dr. Adam Pacton, inaugural Dean Fellow for AI Literacy and Integration at Arizona State University, lays out why 2025–26 is a make-or-break moment for higher ed...

AI's Existential Threat to Higher Education: A Wake-Up Call for Educators“The gulf between where we’re still at and how it keeps moving further and further away from the awareness and abilities of academics, the more it becomes an existential threat.”Is your institution ready for the AI revolution, or is it stuck in academic inertia? Dr. James Hudson from Lindenwood University delivers hard tr...

ACT’s lead research scientist Jeff Schiel joins the AI x Higher Ed Podcast to unpack a new report on how U.S. high school students view AI—and how those views relate to AI training in school, intended college major, and gender. We talk about what “moderate” training really means (as students see it), why attitudes differ across majors (hello, business/CS vs. arts), the gender optimism gap and the...

In this August 2025 update, Stefan and Anand offer a high-level update on developments in AI and their implications for education. There is a lot of ground to cover from the summer. Be sure to check back through the school year for their weekly updates. August 2025 Update Topics:0:14 - Introduction0:50 - Major Themes 1:38 - AI Model Updates11:26 - Agentic Abilities17:38 - Photo & Video Generat...

This week’s AI Update dives into major breakthroughs, classroom adoption, and urgent ethical debates:- Google’s Nano Banana model and astonishing continuity in AI image editing- New Google Vids workflows with Gemini V3 for video production- Live translation tools reshaping communication and education- Apple’s on-device AI model for captioning and visual description- New research showing 85%+ of st...