The final months of 2025 brought an unprecedented opportunity to immerse myself in the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education. Through three distinct conferences, each offering unique perspectives on AI’s role in teaching, learning and workforce preparation. I gained invaluable insights that have fundamentally shaped my understanding of where we stand and where we’re headed as we prepare for 2026.
My exploration began at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) conference in Memphis, Tennessee, where I served on a panel with Mara Woody from Riipen and Jamia Stokes from Complete College America. Our presentation, “Closing the AI Opportunity Gap,” showcased our collaborative work on the AI Readiness Consortium, a groundbreaking grant that funded five community colleges across the country, including Pikes Peak State College (Colorado), to integrate AI into their learning outcomes and connect learners directly with employers through the Riipen platform.
The discussions at CAEL centered on AI’s potential to enhance access and support for diverse student populations, but it revealed sobering realities. While we’ve made progress, we still have significant ground to cover. The conversations here weren’t just about technology; they were about equity, opportunity and ensuring that historically underserved communities aren’t left behind in our rush toward a digital transformation.
This article is part of a biweekly series provided by the Instructional Technology Council, an affiliated council of the American Association of Community Colleges.
As we discovered through our consortium work, colleges are being asked to develop AI literacy programs when we don’t fully understand what AI literacy encompasses, while simultaneously being tasked with creating academic programs for careers that don’t yet exist, according to an American Association of Colleges & Universities report.
Next, the Teaching Professor workshop provided a hands-on laboratory for practical application. Working alongside my colleague Katie Wheeler, we offered educators concrete strategies, real-world classroom experiences and interactive activities they could immediately implement. We demonstrated the accessibility of these tools by building an AI bot for one participant during the session, a tangible example of how these technologies have become within reach for everyday educators.
This workshop emphasized the practical pedagogy needed to integrate AI as a supportive coach rather than a replacement for critical thinking. The experience left me with numerous ideas percolating about curriculum redesign, assessment evolution and faculty development strategies.
Before I could fully process these insights, I was off to my final conference of 2025: the Colorado Cooperation. Asked to represent all higher education in Colorado based on an article I had published in Community College Daily for the Instructional Technology Council on AI ethics, I addressed the impact of artificial intelligence on learning and workforce readiness across our state. This platform allowed me to synthesize insights from the previous conferences while addressing the unique challenges facing Colorado’s educational landscape, particularly the growing demand for AI-skilled workers in our state’s evolving economy.
The reality check: Where we stand
The truth is both sobering and exciting: AI is already transforming education at community colleges and will continue to shape the future of learning and workforce readiness for the next decade. Yet we face a fundamental paradox that became crystal clear through these three conferences. We’re being asked to develop academic programs for careers that don’t yet exist, while 66% of employers report they wouldn’t hire someone without AI literacy skills, according to a 2025 Microsoft analysis. This contradictory set of data presents both challenge and opportunity for community colleges.
The AI Readiness Consortium was established specifically to address this challenge by creating access to opportunity for all learners — a mission that resonates deeply with community college values. As Mara Woody observed during our panel discussion: “The demands on higher education are great, especially in a time of change and technological advancement at a staggering rate, and complexity that was unheard of even five minutes ago, let alone five years ago. But if anyone can rise to the occasion and thrive within it, it is higher education.”
This observation proved prophetic as I witnessed firsthand how community colleges across the consortium were rising to meet these demands, developing innovative approaches to AI integration that balanced technological advancement with educational equity.
Beyond the tools: The human element
Perhaps the most critical insight from these three conferences is this: our journey with AI won’t follow a straight line. We won’t all progress from point A to Z in linear fashion. Some of us will revisit point D repeatedly, perhaps because it’s comfortable, perhaps due to error, and that’s perfectly acceptable. We are all human, and perhaps that’s the most essential thing to understand in our relationship with artificial intelligence.
As my colleague Jonathan Liebert from the Colorado Better Business Bureau aptly termed it during our final panel, artificial intelligence is a “thought partner.” It’s not just a tool; it’s a co-teacher that can serve as tutor, teaching assistant and bridge to the growing AI-skill demands in Colorado and beyond. This reframing from “tool” to “thought partner” represents a fundamental shift in how we conceptualize AI’s role in education, moving from replacement anxiety to collaborative enhancement.
The Teaching Professor workshop reinforced this concept through practical application. When we built the AI bot with a participant, we weren’t replacing the educator’s expertise; we were amplifying it. The bot became an extension of their pedagogical approach, customized to their specific needs and teaching style.
The path forward: Intentional integration
The role of higher education isn’t to chase every new technological trend. Instead, our mission is to help students make sense of these tools — teaching learners not just how to use AI, but how to question it, think critically about it and apply it ethically and creatively. This became abundantly clear through the diverse perspectives shared across all three conferences.
This requires fundamental shifts in our approach:
- Curriculum redesign: Moving from memorization-based learning to reasoning and applied skills. As demonstrated through our consortium work, this means redesigning assessments to focus on tasks that require human creativity, critical thinking and ethical reasoning — areas where AI serves as support rather than replacement.
- Faculty development: Training educators to design pedagogy that leverages AI as a supportive coach rather than a crutch. The Teaching Professor workshop showed how faculty can be empowered to create AI-enhanced learning experiences that maintain academic rigor while improving accessibility.
- Assessment evolution: Focusing on reasoning and application rather than tasks, AI can complete independently. This shift requires transparency about AI use and clear expectations between instructors and learners about when and how AI tools are appropriate.
- Digital literacy integration: Recognizing AI literacy as a core competency regardless of discipline. Whether we call it AI literacy or digital literacy, this skill set has become as fundamental as traditional literacy in preparing students for the modern workforce.
The equity imperative
The AI Readiness Consortium was established to create access to opportunity for all learners — a mission that became more urgent with each conference presentation. If we aren’t intentional about our approach, the same communities historically excluded from opportunity will again be left behind. This makes our work not just about technological advancement but about social justice and educational equity.
At CAEL, we saw how AI adoption risks widening access, bias, and opportunity gaps due to disparities in technology availability and inherent biases in AI data. However, we also witnessed the tremendous potential for AI tools, like translation and captioning to significantly aid multilingual and neurodiverse learners. The key lies in intentional implementation supported by federal funding and industry partnerships that promote equitable AI education.
Through the consortium’s work with Riipen, we’ve seen how direct connections between learners and employers can bridge the gap between academic preparation and workforce readiness, ensuring that students from all backgrounds have access to AI-enhanced career opportunities.
National context and industry investment
The conferences revealed that our work exists within a broader national movement. With widespread job demand for AI-literate workers, significant industry investment in AI education initiatives, and rapid shifts occurring in classrooms nationwide, higher education must lead rather than react. The consortium represents just one example of how community colleges are positioning themselves at the forefront of this transformation.
Federal funding opportunities and industry partnerships are creating unprecedented resources for institutions willing to embrace this challenge. However, success requires strategic planning, faculty buy-in and a commitment to maintaining educational quality while embracing technological innovation.
Conclusion: Setting the stage for tomorrow
After pondering these three rich experiences over several busy weeks, I can honestly say that AI won’t make education less human — it will make the human parts matter more. With national initiatives, industry investment, widespread job demand and rapid classroom shifts, higher education must lead, not react.
As we integrate artificial intelligence into higher education, we’re not chasing the latest fad. We’re enhancing access, support and opportunities for diverse student populations while preparing them for an AI-driven labor market. We’re balancing AI use with authentic learning, setting clear expectations and maintaining transparency about AI applications.
The future requires us to emphasize what makes us uniquely human: critical thinking, creativity, ethical reasoning, and the ability to work collaboratively with both human and artificial intelligence partners. Higher education is indeed setting the stage, but AI is already here, reshaping how we work, live and teach.
Our task as we move into 2026 is clear: embrace this transformation thoughtfully, inclusively and with unwavering commitment to our students’ success in an AI-enhanced world. The insights gained from these three conferences provide a roadmap for that journey; one that honors our educational mission while boldly embracing the possibilities that artificial intelligence brings to teaching and learning.
