If you’re giving a commencement speech in 2026, maybe don’t mention AI

Commencement season has come around again — and this year, at least a couple speakers have discovered that it’s tough to get graduating students excited about a future shaped by artificial intelligence. Last week, Gloria Caulfield, an executive at real estate firm Tavistock Development Company, gave a speech at the University of Central Florida acknowledging that we’re living in a time of “profound change,” which can be both “exciting” and “daunting.” “The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” Caulfield declared — prompting the students in the audience to begin booing, getting louder and louder until Caulfield chuckled, turned to the other speakers, and asked, “What happened?” “Okay, I struck a chord,” she said. Caulfield then tried to resume her speech, saying, “Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives” — only to be interrupted again by the audience, this time by their loud cheers and applause. VIDEO Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt faced a similar response when he brought up AI at a University of Arizona speech on Friday. In Schmidt’s case, the pushback actually began before the speech itself, with some student groups calling for him to be removed as commencement speaker due to a lawsuit in which a former girlfriend and business partner accused Schmidt of sexual assault . (He has denied the allegations.) According to a local news report, the booing began even before Schmidt took the stage. …