'I can hear you': Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt booed at graduation as students push back on AI hype

This graduation season, the caps and gowns came with a side of boos, not because of bad jokes or awkward pauses, but because of the reference to artificial intelligence.

When former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told University of Arizona graduates that AI would “shape the world,” some in the crowd booed loudly. “I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” Schmidt said, pausing mid-speech to acknowledge it in real time. He wasn't the only one. Real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was booed at the University of Central Florida after she described AI as “the next industrial revolution.” Scott Borchetta, CEO of Big Machine Records, faced similar pushback when he spoke about the increasing role of AI in music and business at Middle Tennessee State University.

Three commencement speeches. Three rounds of boos. All in one spring.


This isn't just about technology
To understand why graduates are reacting like this, you have to understand what they’re walking into. These are not students who are allergic to innovation or anti-progress. Many of them have been using AI tools for years now. They are graduating into one of the toughest entry-level job markets in recent memory. And they are watching companies openly discuss replacing the very roles that new graduates typically fill, writing, coding, data analysis, customer service, marketing, with AI.

This isn’t paranoia. That’s pattern recognition.

A Lumina Foundation-Gallup 2026 State of Higher Education Study found that 57 percent of college students use AI tools at least weekly to complete coursework. At the same time, more than half of students say their schools discourage or even ban the use of AI in the classroom. Think about that contradiction for a moment. Professors are telling students not to trust AI, while CEOs, at their own graduation ceremonies, are telling them that their careers depend on mastering it. Such mixed signals cause frustration, not excitement.

The gap between experts and the rest of us
Here’s something that’s rarely honestly discussed: the people who are most enthusiastic about AI are almost always the people who have the most to gain from it.

Pew Research Center finds that while 47% of AI experts say they are more excited than concerned about AI’s growing role in daily life, only 11% of the general American public feels that way. Meanwhile, 51% of U.S. adults say they are more concerned than excited, a number that has been on the rise since 2021.

That’s not some marginal opinion. That’s the bulk of Americans.

This wave of automation is not like the previous ones, which were focused on factory floors and blue-collar jobs. It is coming straight for office work, the kind of work that college graduates have traditionally relied on to get their foot in the door. A 22-year-old listening to a CEO say AI will change the economy isn’t hearing an opportunity. They hear: the entry-level job you’re targeting might be gone by the time you’re ready for it.

What the boos actually meant
Here’s the nuance that gets lost in the headlines: the booing students weren’t rejecting technology. They were against the way they are being marketed.

There's a version of the AI conversation that's honest about disruption that, yes, some jobs will change, some jobs will disappear, and that real people will bear real costs in that transition. Then there's the version that graduates hear at commencement: AI is exciting, AI is inevitable, here's how to ride the wave.

The boos are what happen when people have heard the second version too many times.

What helps at present
The honest advice for young Americans entering the workforce is neither to embrace AI blindly nor to fear AI completely. Somewhat more practical in the middle.

AI tools are already embedded in finance, healthcare, marketing, law, and tech. Employers are increasingly expecting workers to be able to use them. These systems make mistakes too: they produce inaccurate information, generate flawed analysis, and reflect the biases baked into their training data. That means one of the most truly valuable skills for a new graduate isn’t just knowing how to prompt an AI. It's knowing when not to believe it.

As Adobe AI expert Chris Duffey told graduates at Marquette University, “Innovation will reveal what can be done, but only you can decide what should be done.”

This is not a line about technology. It’s a line about judgment, which, at least for now, is still very human.