What you need to know
- Students booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a commencement speech focused largely on AI.
- Schmidt championed AI as the future, but many students clearly see it as a job threat.
- The viral moment highlights the growing distrust of AI among young people entering the workforce.
AI could be on everyone’s mind at Google (and I/O 2026 made it clearer than ever), but Silicon Valley still seems to not know how many ordinary people really feel about it. That includes students, who now seem genuinely terrified of AI and even booed former Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a recent commencement speech.
During a graduation ceremony at the University of Arizona, where Schmidt was invited to speak, he began talking about artificial intelligence and its impact on the future. But the moment he mentioned AI, he was greeted with loud boos from the students in the crowd.
Schmidt began by mentioning how Time magazine’s 2025 Person of the Year recognized the architects behind AI. As soon as he said that, the crowd reacted loudly. He then went on to say that society is “on the brink of another technological transformation that will be bigger, faster, and more consequential than before.”
That statement also drew boos from the audience. Schmidt acknowledged that students are entering a much more difficult job market heavily impacted by AI and said the fear surrounding the technology is rational. But even then, the crowd clearly wasn’t buying into Silicon Valley’s optimistic tone.
The former Google CEO continued to defend AI throughout the speech, arguing that the technology will eventually become one of the defining tools of the next generation. “The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt added. “The question is whether artificial intelligence will have been shaped.”
The moment quickly went viral online because it highlighted something that the tech industry seems increasingly disconnected from: Younger people no longer necessarily see AI the same way as tech executives.
For companies like Google, AI is still being presented as the next big productivity revolution. But for students graduating into today’s job market, AI is much less exciting.
we are already seeing thousands of layoffs every month Across industries, and for many young people, AI now feels more like a threat to stability than anything else.
Android Central’s opinion
Wow. Just wow. As someone whose job feels increasingly at risk due to AI, I completely understand where these students are coming from. I don’t think Schmidt’s comments were technically incorrect; In fact, I think we’re probably all still in the denial phase about how much AI will change things, but there’s definitely a better way to frame that conversation with students who are about to enter an already brutal job market.
