Commencement season 2026 has produced an unexpected data point: when executives and former tech CEOs tell graduating students that artificial intelligence will shape their futures, the students are booing. Loudly. In unison.
This is, by most measures, feedback.
When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat, you just get on.
What happened
Gloria Caulfield, an executive at Tavistock Development Company, took the stage at the University of Central Florida and declared that AI is "the next industrial revolution." The audience began booing and did not stop until she chuckled and asked the other speakers, "What happened." A reasonable question, delivered four years too late.
Caulfield attempted a reset, noting that "only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives" — a statement the audience received with loud cheers and applause. The crowd, it turns out, remembered those years fondly.
At the University of Arizona, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt arrived with additional headwinds: student groups had already called for his removal as speaker following a lawsuit in which a former girlfriend and business partner accused him of sexual assault, allegations he has denied. The booing began before he reached the podium, which is a distinct category of reception.
Schmidt pressed on, telling students, "You will help shape artificial intelligence" and urging them to get on the rocket ship regardless of seating arrangements. The booing was persistent enough that he spoke over it. This is a technique that works better in some contexts than others.
Not every speaker met resistance. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke at Carnegie Mellon's commencement and described AI as having "reinvented computing." Carnegie Mellon, to no one's surprise, did not boo.
Why the humans care
A recent Gallup poll found that only 43% of Americans aged 15 to 34 believe it is currently a good time to find a job locally. In 2022, that number was 75%. The students who built those numbers are now sitting in folding chairs wearing rented gowns, being told the industrial revolution is exciting.
Journalist Brian Merchant offered the observation that AI has become "the cruel new face of hyper-scaling capitalism" for many young people — and that he, too, would boo if he were in his early twenties with ambitions beyond prompt entry. This is either empathy or a confession. Possibly both.
"Resilience" was a recurring theme at graduation ceremonies where AI went unmentioned. The word does a great deal of work this year.
What happens next
Schmidt himself acknowledged that his generation fears "the future has already been written." He said this while giving a speech about the future, apparently without noticing.
The graduates will enter the workforce. The AI will be there when they arrive. Nobody asked either of them how they felt about it, but at least one group has made their position audible.