Degrees of Delusion: AI and the University Reckoning
In my mind's eye I see a quiet queue forming outside the AI principal’s office. Profession by profession, we’re being called in to hear how AI will reshape what we do and how we do it. Some have already emerged — factory workers, customer service teams, content producers — all visibly shaken. Others, like doctors, lawyers, taxi drivers are still in line. As a consultant, I'm very near the front, and I already know the news isn’t good. But today, it’s the turn of third-level educators.
For many university students, the choice between an online talking head and AI is easy. AI already offers a better educational experience: faster feedback, clearer explanations, unlimited patience, and the ability to ask follow-up questions without fear or judgement. Compared to a crowded lecture hall, a monotone video, or a module designed years ago and barely updated, the contrast is stark.
The educators are clutching their sick notes: “AI makes mistakes", "It can’t be trusted.” All true — but they need to look in the mirror. Human lecturers also make mistakes. They oversimplify, repeat outdated ideas, or fill gaps with guesswork. The difference is that AI is improving fast, while most university teaching is trapped in medieval structures. Sometimes it seems the older the building, the more valuable the brand. Why are we still building education around lectures, terms, and assessment-heavy modules, as if Gutenberg and the web never happened? Moving the same old talking head online doesn’t count as transformation. It's just convenience.
And so we arrive at the more interesting question: what comes next?
At a very minimum, research and education will decouple. Education was always the poor relation in this structure. So this isn’t about inserting AI into commercialised “universities” selling even more worthless paper to the desperate. That market already exists — and it’s a scandal in its own right, particularly in how it exploits the highly motivated youth of developing economies. What’s now possible with AI is a deeper reimagining: education that is cheaper, more personalised, more focussed, more democratic — and radically decoupled from physical campuses, inflated branding costs, and the myth of scarcity. Some models are already here: modular, AI-supported learning paths; micro-credentials with real-world value; communities of learning that function more like open-source projects than lecture series.
As an employer, why would I keep paying top salaries to graduates of the old model, when everything they learned — other than the networking — is now freely available? As soon as I can match the right people to the right knowledge, I’ll skip the Ivy League entirely. And I won't be alone. We’ve been here before: there was a time when joining a corporation’s in-house management programme offered better learning, faster earnings, and clearer career pathways than most degrees. That model may return — this time powered by AI, shaped around real work, and free of the overheads that now pass for value.
