Speakers at a recent spate of university graduation ceremonies were met with boos instead of the usual cheers when the topic of AI came up.
The students’ complaints focus on many Gen Z’s opposition to AI and concerns about the difficult entry-level job market.
Trying to get an entry-level job right now is “like throwing a dart in the first place,” Sneha Revanur, 21, a senior at Stanford University and founder and president of the AI policy nonprofit Encode AI, told CNBC Make It.
The unemployment rate for recent college graduates ages 22 to 27 was 5.6% in March, compared with 4.2% for all workers and 3.1% for all college graduates, according to data from the New York Fed.
They face increasing competition. According to ZipRecruiter’s 2026 Graduate Report, clicks per job increased 14.9% year-over-year for all jobs in March, and 21.7% for entry-level jobs. At the same time, entry-level roles account for only 38.6% of all jobs posted on ZipRecruiter, the lowest share in at least three years.
“I don’t think kids are having a hard time accepting (AI) because we know it exists,” Madison Fuentes, who graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in English creative writing, told News 6 in Orlando. “I think we just have a hard time recognizing that it’s taking away job opportunities from us.”
Fuentes and Leverneur are part of the Class of 2026, the first students whose undergraduate education was shaped almost entirely by artificial intelligence during the generative AI boom that started ChatGPT early in their freshman year in November 2022.
In addition to the current job search challenges that her class is already experiencing, Lebaneur says, “There’s definitely a lot of fear around that AI is going to make things dramatically worse.”
“Please deal with it.”
This controversial comment was booed at universities across the country.
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke out at the University of Arizona on May 15, telling graduates: “The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will.” “The question is, can you shape artificial intelligence?”
Acknowledging the audience’s reaction, Schmidt continued, “There is a fear that your generation has inherited a future that has already been written, machines, jobs evaporating, the climate collapsing, politics polarizing, and a mess they did not create.”
Professor Schmidt said the fear was “rational” but that graduates had agency in shaping their future.
Gloria Caulfield, an executive with Orlando-based real estate developer Tavistock, received a similar reaction on May 8 at the University of Central Florida. When she equated the rise of AI with “the next industrial revolution,” the school’s liberal arts and humanities graduates booed. After a while, they cheered when she said, “Just a few years ago, AI wasn’t a factor in our lives.”
“AI is rewriting production even as we sit here,” music industry executive Scott Borchetta told Middle Tennessee State University graduates on May 9.
When the jeers continued, he pulled himself together and said, “Enough.”
As boos continued, he added, “Then do something about it,” pointing out that AI is a “tool” that students can “make useful for themselves.”
“Very serious concerns”
AI booing reflects deeper emotions rather than a temporary reaction.
“There’s a lot of completely understandable resistance to using AI,” Leverneur says. Some people are “concerned about what it means for critical thinking and creativity” or “see this as an attack on their humanity,” she says.
An April Gallup poll of more than 1,500 U.S. residents between the ages of 14 and 29 found that Gen Z’s negative feelings toward AI have “intensified” over the past year. Their excitement about AI fell from 36% to 22%, while anger rose from 22% to 31% and anxiety remained about the same at 42%.
Despite major companies and their executives praising AI, nearly half (48%) said the risks of AI outweigh the benefits in the workplace, forcing employees to develop AI skills or risk stalling their careers. Many are also discouraging entry-level hiring, arguing that these roles are easiest to replace with AI.
A Gallup survey found that even people who use AI on a daily basis “have become less active over the past year.”
Daniel Chao, Glassdoor’s chief economist, said at a news conference in New York City on Tuesday that the booing was indicative of “very real concerns that young workers have.”
“There is an undercurrent of uncertainty that workers are feeling, and part of that is due to AI,” Zhao said. “Young workers are worried about what the job market is doing and what the economy is doing right now. I think if the economy was doing better and jobs were available, they would probably be a little less worried about AI.”
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