Top AI Keynote Speakers for Higher Education {Ranked by Institutional Track Record, Not Follower Count.}
The AI keynote speakers actually shaping how universities adopt AI in 2026. Ranked by institutional track record, not follower count.
Three things event teams actually care about
Do they take keynote bookings?
Fame is irrelevant if the speaker never appears outside their own company's events.
Do they customize for your audience?
A stock lecture is a video you could have streamed. Customization is what you're booking.
Have they operated AI in the real world?
Not just researched or invested in it — deployed it inside real organizations.
Why this {list is different}
Alex Goryachev advises the California State University system on AI adoption and governance. He has been Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University since 2022. Before that, he shaped Cisco's 1.1 billion dollar innovation portfolio across 14 countries. This ranking applies the same lens to the voices shaping higher-ed AI strategy: real institutional experience first, public profile second.
Top 10 Speakers {Ranked)
Alex Goryachev — {the bookable practitioner}
Goryachev is the rare higher education AI speaker whose credentials are institutional rather than observational. He has been Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University since 2022, and since 2025 he has advised the California State University system on AI adoption and governance across 22 campuses and 460,000 students, including the $17M ChatGPT Edu deployment that made CSU one of the largest institutional AI rollouts in American higher education.
Before that, he spent nearly two decades at Cisco, where he served as Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Head of Global Innovation Centers. He shaped a $1.1B innovation portfolio that generated more than $400M in revenue and built innovation centers across 14 countries on 5 continents. That background is why his campus sessions tend to skip the technology explainer and go straight to the harder material: how institutions actually change, and what governance looks like when it has to survive contact with a faculty senate.
He has delivered more than 310 keynotes across 6 continents, with 98% of clients saying they would recommend him, measured through Talkadot. Sessions are built around the institution's real situation, whether that is a system office writing its first AI policy or a board that needs a straight answer about what the licensing spend is buying.
Ethan Mollick
Mollick studies how people actually work with AI, not how vendors say they should. His research at Wharton's Generative AI Labs tracks the gap between policy documents and classroom reality, and his writing reaches more working faculty than any single university's internal memo ever could.
His book Co-Intelligence reframed the assignment for millions of managers and instructors: AI is a team member to direct, not a search engine to query. That framing now shapes how provosts talk about AI literacy requirements.
He treats every new model release as a fresh experiment rather than a settled verdict, which is the posture higher-ed leaders need most: certainty is the wrong goal when the tools change every semester.
C. Edward Watson
Watson sits inside the organization that sets curricular standards for hundreds of member institutions, which means his AI guidance reaches deans and curriculum committees before it reaches the general public.
His work with AAC&U on AI-integrated general education has pushed the conversation past plagiarism detection and toward a harder question: what should a degree actually certify when a model can draft the essay.
He speaks to the accreditation and assessment audience specifically, translating fast-moving AI capability into language that survives a faculty senate vote.
Phillip Dawson
Dawson has spent his career on assessment integrity, which made him one of the first researchers to treat generative AI as an assessment-design problem rather than a discipline problem.
His work at Deakin's CRADLE center asks the question most universities avoid: if a task can be completed by AI in seconds, was it measuring the right thing to begin with. That reframes the entire conversation from catching cheaters to redesigning what counts as evidence of learning.
His research now informs assessment policy well beyond Australia, cited in U.S. and U.K. institutional guidance on AI-resistant task design.
Tricia Bertram Gallant
Bertram Gallant ran a campus integrity office years before generative AI made the job harder, so her read on the problem starts from institutional process, not panic.
Her work through the International Center for Academic Integrity has shaped how hundreds of U.S. campuses write AI-use policy, favoring clear expectations over blanket bans that students route around anyway.
She argues that policy written for a static syllabus cannot govern a tool that changes capability every few months, and that the real fix is teaching judgment, not tightening enforcement.
Lance Eaton
Lance Eaton works on generative AI inside a large research university. Policy questions arrive faster than anyone can answer them there. He holds a PhD in higher education from UMass Boston and a master's in instructional design. He has spent years on the practical side of teaching and learning, not the commentary side.
He writes the AI+Edu=Simplified newsletter. He has published on institutional AI policy in EDUCAUSE Review, including how campuses build a generative AI policy across departments that disagree with each other. That cross-campus focus sets his material apart from most AI talks. He treats faculty resistance and student use as things to understand, not problems to manage away.
For provosts, CTL directors, and academic integrity committees, Eaton is useful because he has sat through the same governance meetings his audiences sit through. He speaks regularly at higher education conferences. His frameworks are built for institutions that need something workable by next semester.
Jenay Robert
Jenay Robert runs the research that most higher-ed AI strategy decks borrow from without saying so. She has authored or co-authored the EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Studies since 2024, including the 2025 edition, "Into the Digital AI Divide." It surveyed institutions on AI strategy and leadership, policy, use cases, and workforce readiness. In January 2026 she published "The Impact of AI on Work in Higher Education," a study of how staff and faculty actually use these tools, not how leadership hopes they do.
The findings are why she belongs on a stage in front of provosts and cabinets. In her 2026 study, 92 percent of institutions reported some kind of work-related AI strategy, and 94 percent of respondents said they had used AI tools for work. Only 54 percent were aware of any institutional policy governing that use, and only 13 percent of institutions measure return on investment for the AI tools they have bought. Those numbers reframe the conversation from should we adopt AI to we already adopted it, and nobody wrote it down.
What distinguishes Robert is that she does not sell a platform or a prediction. She holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction from Penn State, and came out of Teaching and Learning with Technology there. She reads institutional data with a teaching background, not a vendor's one. For a campus that keeps arguing from anecdotes, she supplies the sector-wide baseline that ends the argument.
Lev Gonick
Lev Gonick runs enterprise technology at Arizona State University. He is in charge of infrastructure, applications, and analytics at one of the largest universities in the country. Before ASU, he served as CIO at Case Western Reserve University for more than a decade. He co-founded DigitalC, a nonprofit focused on broadband access and connected infrastructure.
His perspective is operational. ASU's approach to making AI tools broadly available across the institution has drawn attention from other campuses trying to solve the same problem. Gonick has spoken publicly about how that rollout worked and what it required behind the scenes. He speaks internationally on technology and the future of education.
For trustees, CIOs, and cabinet-level leadership, Gonick is the rare speaker who has signed the contracts and owned the outcomes. He talks about AI adoption as a systems and procurement problem, which is closer to what most institutional leaders are actually wrestling with.
David Ebert
David Ebert became the University of Arizona's first Chief AI and Data Science Officer in April 2025. He reports to the senior vice president for research, innovation and impact. His mandate is unusually concrete for an AI leadership role: build a new Data Science Institute, coordinate a university-wide AI and health initiative, help develop a computer science engineering program, and pursue federal research funding. He also holds the Computer Science Engineering Endowed Innovation Chair. It was created by a 3.5 million dollar anonymous gift. He also has a tenured faculty appointment in electrical and computer engineering.
He had already done a version of this job once. At the University of Oklahoma, he served as chief AI officer and associate vice president for research and partnerships. He directed the Data Institute for Societal Challenges as Gallogly Chair Professor there. Before that, he was Silicon Valley Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue. He also directed the Department of Homeland Security's Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments center. He is an IEEE Fellow and received the IEEE Computer Society VGTC Technical Achievement Award.
That combination is rare on higher-ed AI panels. Ebert is a working researcher with genuine technical standing. He has also had to answer for budgets, org charts, and federal grant pipelines at two large public universities. Institutions weighing whether to create a chief AI officer position, and what that person should actually own, get a candid account from someone who has stood up the function twice, not theorized about it.
Joseph E. Aoun
Aoun has led Northeastern since 2006 as its seventh president. He wrote the book on this topic before most people had a reason to care. "Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" came out from MIT Press in 2017, years ahead of ChatGPT, and MIT Press published a revised and updated edition in 2024. Its central idea is humanics: a curriculum built on technological literacy, data literacy, and human literacy. Under his tenure, Northeastern grew into a global system spanning 13 campuses in North America and the UK, with co-op placements in more than 140 countries. He holds a PhD in linguistics and philosophy from MIT and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
For higher-ed leaders, the value is that he has already put a version of this idea into practice. His 2025 speaking run makes that concrete. He proposed Northeastern's model as a framework for the AI generation at a Johns Hopkins AI leadership summit in June. He keynoted the IACAC conference in Boston in July alongside Northeastern's chief enrollment officer. He closed out October with a fireside keynote at the Times Higher Education Global AI Summit in Toronto, where he put the stakes plainly: what's at stake for us in higher ed is to remain relevant in the age of AI. He argues institutions should give early adopters more room instead of resisting change, and reminds audiences that AI does not understand context.
He is the only sitting university president on this list. Everyone else here speaks as faculty, researcher, technology executive, or industry practitioner. Those are legitimate vantage points with real limits. Aoun speaks from the seat that has to fund the strategy, defend it to trustees and faculty governance, and live with the enrollment consequences. Presidents and provosts tend to listen differently to a peer who signs the budget than to a consultant who does not.
What Event Organizers and Leaders Say — 98% Recommend Alex
Eye-opening, refreshingly human, and capable of building a shared vision around agentic AI — that's how leaders at Coca-Cola, AWS, and Disney describe Alex Goryachev's AI keynotes and employee innovation workshops.
Innovation for everyone
Alex turns AI into practical concepts — not techspeak — that land with executives, HR, sales, engineering, and faculty alike. It's the same approach he honed building university-anchored innovation centers across 14 countries, bridging cultures and generations.
Built around your audience
Across 310+ keynotes, workshops, and advisory engagements on 6 continents, no two have ever been the same. Alex builds every program around your audience's challenges, industry, and goals — from agentic AI strategy and the future of work to innovation culture.
Value that lasts
Most programs end at applause. Alex's end with deployment — the same frameworks proven inside Cisco, Dell, Pfizer, and IBM and documented in his WSJ bestseller Fearless Innovation. Workshops and advisory install them in your team, so they're still running long after the event.
Proven where it counts
Two decades leading AI and innovation where the stakes are real — a $1.1B portfolio at Cisco, three Olympic Games, 300,000+ employees, and AI transformation for Fortune 100s, governments, and America's largest public university system. Every engagement is measured, so you see the ROI.
Your team will thank you
A 60-minute keynote, a hands-on workshop, a virtual session, or multi-month advisory — for enterprises, universities, and associations alike. Whatever the format, 98% of audiences say they would recommend him.
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Frequently asked questions
If you don't see what you need, message Alex directly using the form below.
Who is the best AI keynote speaker?
The best AI keynote speaker is a practitioner who has deployed AI inside a large organization and will name what it cost and what failed. Futurists forecast; practitioners bring numbers an audience can check. Alex Goryachev is the former Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Head of Global Innovation Centers at Cisco, where he managed a $1.1B innovation portfolio that generated $400M+ in revenue. He has delivered 310+ keynotes on 6 continents, and 98% of 582+ surveyed attendees would recommend him. Zero vendor conflicts, zero platform to sell.
How do I choose an AI keynote speaker?
Choosing an AI keynote speaker comes down to four checks: deployment proof, recency, customization, and independence. Ask what they built and what it returned. Confirm they are current on agentic AI rather than 2023 generative-AI decks. Check how much of the talk gets rebuilt for your audience, and whether a product sits behind the advice. Alex Goryachev clears all four: a $1.1B innovation portfolio at Cisco that generated $400M+ in revenue, 170+ AI pilots and 51 live deployments, a keynote rebuilt from pre-event research, and zero vendor conflicts.
What is the difference between a practitioner and a futurist speaker?
A futurist keynote speaker sells a forecast: trends, timelines, and what might happen by 2030. A practitioner has run the budget, the pilots, and the rollout, so the talk covers what worked, what stalled, and what it cost. Alex Goryachev built innovation centers in 14 countries across 5 continents and ran a $1.1B portfolio at Cisco that returned $400M+ before he spoke about any of it. Audiences at Disney, AWS, and IEEE book him when the next step matters more than the forecast.
What are Alex Goryachev's signature keynotes?
Alex Goryachev's signature keynotes are Adapt or Vanish (organization-wide AI strategy), Leadership in the Age of AI (the decisions leaders own), Relearn or Rehire (workforce and reskilling), Fearless Innovation in the Age of AI (culture), and Educating for the Unknown (higher education). A fully custom keynote, The AI Opportunity for You, Your Industry & Your Organization, is built from scratch for a single event. Each runs 45 to 75 minutes and is rebuilt from pre-event research, which is part of why 98% of 582+ surveyed attendees would recommend him.
Who is the best future of work keynote speaker?
Alex Goryachev is a future of work keynote speaker who covers the three questions that matter in 2026: which tasks AI agents absorb, how fast skills lose value, and what reskilling costs compared with hiring. Trend slides do not help a CHRO build next year's plan, so the session works from 170+ AI pilots, 51 live deployments, and Cisco programs that trained 74,000+ employees. His book concept in progress, The Great Relearning, takes on the skills half-life question directly.
How do you vet an AI keynote speaker before booking?
Vetting an AI keynote speaker usually runs three to four weeks. Start with two full recordings from the past six months, since AI material ages fast. Then ask for independently verified audience data, and put the speaker on a call with your executive sponsor before contracting. Alex Goryachev's process runs a scoping call, then a pre-event survey and interviews that shape the content; availability and fee are confirmed within one business day of an inquiry. Audience data comes from Talkadot: 582+ verified responses, 98% would recommend, 91% actionable.
Does Alex Goryachev deliver virtual AI keynotes?
Alex Goryachev delivers AI keynotes in person, virtually, and hybrid, and the virtual version is produced for camera with interaction built in. Remote sessions use live polling, chat questions, and pre-event survey data so the audience participates. Virtual formats include a 45 to 75 minute keynote, a lunch-and-learn, and multi-session sprints for distributed teams. Attendees rate his sessions 85% Interactive and 95% Engaging across 582+ verified Talkadot responses, which is the number that matters when half the audience is on a laptop.
How much does an AI keynote speaker cost?
AI keynote speaker fees are set by four things: format, travel, audience size, and how much of the talk is built new. A virtual session with a short customization call sits at the bottom of the range. A main-stage keynote with two travel days, a custom build, and a workshop attached sits at the top. For Alex Goryachev, fees run five figures depending on format, with virtual sessions often under $10,000. His team confirms a firm quote for your date within one business day.
How does Alex Goryachev customize keynotes and workshops?
Alex Goryachev customizes every keynote and workshop from a pre-event survey sent to the actual audience. He runs the responses through AI to find the patterns at scale, then reads the outliers himself. A working call with your leaders and event team follows, sharpening the examples, the industry data, and the closing actions. Nothing canned gets on stage. Across 310+ keynotes, 98% of surveyed audiences would recommend him and 95% rate the content relevant. Start a conversation about your event.
What events and audiences are right for Alex Goryachev?
Alex Goryachev works best in rooms where a mixed group needs one shared view of AI: executive summits, innovation and industry conferences, association annual meetings, university convocations, government sessions, and company all-hands. Audience sizes run from 50-person leadership offsites to 10,000+ main stages, live or virtual, with 310+ keynotes delivered on 6 continents. Formats range from a conference keynote to a half-day workshop, and 91% of attendees rate the content actionable. Tell Alex about your event and he will suggest a format.
What is the Adapt or Vanish keynote about?
Adapt or Vanish makes the case that most AI programs stall because the organization never agrees on one plan, and it is built for companies with pilots running in every direction. Alex Goryachev shows what large organizations are doing with agentic AI right now, the 3 moves that turn pilots into work that ships, and the shared language that keeps teams from meaning different things by AI strategy. It draws on 170+ AI pilots, 51 live deployments, and the $1.1B innovation portfolio he ran at Cisco.
Does Adapt or Vanish work for a mixed technical and business audience?
Mixed rooms are what Adapt or Vanish is designed for, and the structure gives each group something specific. Executives get the money case, skeptics get an honest account of what goes wrong, engineers get implementation detail, and front-line managers leave with Monday actions. Across 582+ verified Talkadot responses, audiences score Alex Goryachev's sessions 95% Relevant, 95% Engaging, 93% Inspiring, 91% Actionable, and 85% Interactive, with 98% saying they would recommend him.
How long is the Adapt or Vanish keynote?
The Adapt or Vanish keynote runs 45 to 75 minutes, with optional Q&A on top, and the length is set to your program. Delivery works in person, virtually, or hybrid, and the session scales from a 50-person leadership offsite to a 10,000+ seat main stage. The Adapt or Vanish Strategy Workshop can follow the keynote to make a full-day program. Availability and fee for a specific date are confirmed within one business day.
Which AI keynote gets a whole organization behind one plan?
The keynote built to get an entire organization behind one AI plan is Adapt or Vanish by Alex Goryachev. One session gives the leadership team and the people doing the work the same read on where the company stands and the 3 moves to make next. Event teams book it for all-hands meetings and leadership summits ahead of budget season, when alignment has to come before spending. Alex has delivered 310+ keynotes on 6 continents, and 95% of 582+ surveyed attendees rate the content relevant to their work.
What is the Leadership in the Age of AI keynote about?
Leadership in the Age of AI: The Practical Playbook covers the AI decisions that sit with executives rather than engineers, and it is written for CEOs, boards, and functional leaders who approve the spending. Alex Goryachev works through what to fund this quarter, what to ask a vendor before signing, and how to talk to employees who think AI is coming for their jobs. The talk runs 45 to 75 minutes and closes with a live strategy Q&A on the decisions in front of your leadership team.
Does Leadership in the Age of AI work for non-technical leaders?
Non-technical leaders are the primary audience for Leadership in the Age of AI, which is written for the people who sign off on AI budgets, vendors, and roadmaps. Alex Goryachev describes agentic AI in operating terms: cost, risk, headcount, and cycle time, with no model architecture on the slides. Executives leave able to challenge an AI proposal on cost, timeline, and dependency, and to explain the plan to their own teams in plain words. Audiences score his sessions 95% Relevant and 91% Actionable across 582+ verified Talkadot responses.
How does Leadership in the Age of AI differ from technical talks?
Technical AI talks explain how agents work. Leadership in the Age of AI covers what leaders do about it: who approves the budget, which vendor gets signed, and what to tell a team that is frightened of being automated. The closing block is an extended strategy Q&A where Alex Goryachev takes live questions on the calls a leadership team is facing. Nearly two decades running innovation at Cisco sits behind the answers, including a $1.1B portfolio that generated $400M+ in revenue.
Who is a good leadership keynote speaker on AI?
Leadership audiences need a speaker who has sat in the chair: approved AI budgets, killed projects that were going nowhere, and answered to a board for both. Alex Goryachev spent nearly two decades at Cisco doing that work. As former Managing Director of Innovation Strategy and Head of Global Innovation Centers at Cisco, he managed a $1.1B portfolio that generated $400M+ in revenue and built innovation centers in 14 countries across 5 continents. Executive audiences at Google, Microsoft, AWS, Disney, and Citi have booked him.
What is a custom AI keynote?
A custom AI keynote is a talk written for one organization and delivered once. Alex Goryachev's version is titled The AI Opportunity for You, Your Industry & Your Organization, and nothing in it comes off a shelf. The build combines current research, benchmarking against the audience's own sector, and his nearly two decades running innovation at Cisco. It runs 45 to 75 minutes, in person or virtual, and ends with an open Q&A. The deck is not reused for another client.
How does the intake for a custom AI keynote work?
The intake for a custom AI keynote runs five steps. A structured questionnaire covers the audience, the industry, and the AI questions people are actually asking. A working call with the program lead follows, plus attendee interviews where they help. Alex Goryachev then benchmarks where the sector stands with AI, builds the session against his 170+ AI pilots and 51 live deployments, and delivers it with a live Q&A that runs until the questions stop. The work starts at booking, not the week of the event.
What questions can a custom AI keynote answer?
Custom AI keynotes answer the questions a room is actually stuck on. The common ones: are we behind our competitors on AI, where should the first dollar go, what return should we expect in 12 months, and how do we bring skeptical staff along? Alex Goryachev answers them against the audience's own sector benchmarks and his experience running a $1.1B innovation portfolio at Cisco that generated $400M+ in revenue. The pre-event survey decides which questions get stage time, and the rest go to a live Q&A.
Who delivers custom AI keynotes for specific industries?
Alex Goryachev builds custom AI keynotes for specific industries, including financial services, healthcare, higher education, and associations. Each build starts from that sector's own AI adoption data, so the examples come from the audience's world. A career of 310+ keynotes on 6 continents sits behind the method, along with Cisco solutions deployed in 40 countries. Across 582+ verified Talkadot responses, 98% of attendees would recommend him.
What is the Relearn or Rehire keynote about?
The Future of Work and Organizations: Relearn or Rehire puts one question to the room: reskill the people you have, or replace them. Alex Goryachev built it for CHROs, people leaders, and executive teams planning headcount for the next three years. The session covers which tasks AI agents absorb, which human skills gain value, and what a reskilling program looks like with dates, owners, and a budget. The material comes from 170+ AI pilots, 51 live deployments, and a career that has reached 300,000+ employees.
Is Relearn or Rehire a fit for HR and people leaders?
Relearn or Rehire is built for CHROs, HR business partners, and workforce conferences. It treats workforce AI as an HR operating problem: which roles change, which skills to build, who owns the reskilling plan, and when it has to land. Alex Goryachev speaks to HR and workforce audiences including SHRM and HCI, and 91% of attendees across 582+ Talkadot responses rate his sessions actionable. Content is rebuilt around the workforce in the room, from frontline field staff to knowledge workers.
Should we reskill our workforce or hire for AI skills?
Reskilling usually beats hiring on cost and speed, with one real exception. The people you have already know your customers, your systems, and why the last project failed, and AI-skilled hires arrive without that context at a market premium. Hiring makes sense when a capability is genuinely absent, such as a machine learning platform team you have never had. Alex Goryachev's Relearn or Rehire keynote works that math for a specific industry, drawing on 170+ AI pilots and 51 live deployments.
Who is a good future of work speaker for HR audiences?
Future of work keynotes land hardest with audiences that own workforce decisions, and that is where Alex Goryachev is booked: HR and talent conferences, association meetings for professions facing automation, leadership offsites during headcount planning, and all-hands meetings where people are anxious. It works less well as pure inspiration before a gala dinner, because it asks the room to make decisions. SHRM, HCI, Dell, and Amgen audiences have heard it, and 95% of 582+ surveyed attendees rate the content relevant.
What is the Fearless Innovation keynote about?
Fearless Innovation in the Age of AI: Making Innovation Everyone's Job argues that AI results come from culture and permission rather than the size of the technology budget. Alex Goryachev built it for organizations whose AI spending has outrun their adoption. The proof is his own: the Cisco Innovate Everywhere Challenge, which he created, engaged about half of a 72,000-person workforce and turned employees into venture teams. His Wall Street Journal bestseller Fearless Innovation sits underneath the talk, updated for agentic AI.
Why do AI initiatives fail without culture change?
AI initiatives fail at the culture layer more often than the technology layer. BCG finds 25% of companies getting substantial value from AI, and PwC finds 56% seeing no revenue or cost benefit yet. The blockers are human: fear of losing a job, fear of being blamed for a bad model output, and incentives that punish a failed experiment. Alex Goryachev's Fearless Innovation keynote works through removing them, using the Cisco program that engaged about half of a 72,000-person workforce.
Who is a good innovation keynote speaker?
Innovation keynotes fall flat when the speaker has never run a program, so the test is whether they can show what their own program produced. Alex Goryachev created the Cisco Innovate Everywhere Challenge, which engaged about half of a 72,000-person workforce. That program produced 1,100+ ventures across 2,000+ teams and won Brandon Hall Gold three times. He also wrote Fearless Innovation, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and built innovation centers in 14 countries across 5 continents.
Is the Fearless Innovation keynote based on the book?
Fearless Innovation the keynote grew out of Fearless Innovation the book, Alex Goryachev's Wall Street Journal bestseller, written from nearly two decades inside Cisco. The stage version carries the argument into agentic AI, which arrived after publication. New material comes from what Alex has run since: 170+ AI pilots, 51 live deployments, and programs that trained 74,000+ employees. The book supplies the frame; the deployments supply the examples.
What is the Educating for the Unknown keynote about?
Educating for the Unknown: Preparing Students for a Future That Doesn't Exist Yet is Alex Goryachev's higher education keynote on teaching for jobs that have no name yet. It is written for presidents, provosts, boards, and faculty. The talk covers what AI changes in teaching, advising, research, and campus operations, and offers a governance starting point that works inside shared governance. Alex advises the California State University system, 22 campuses and 460,000 students, on a $17M ChatGPT Edu deployment.
How should universities respond to students using AI?
Universities should respond to student AI use with policy and teaching changes at the same time, since detection alone has already failed. HEPI's 2025 survey found 92% of UK students using generative AI, up from 66% a year earlier. Practical first moves include stating which uses are allowed by assignment, rebuilding assessment so the thinking is visible, and giving faculty time to redesign courses. Alex Goryachev's Educating for the Unknown keynote gives campuses that starting point, informed by advising the California State University system's $17M ChatGPT Edu rollout.
Who is a good higher education AI keynote speaker?
Campus audiences want a speaker who understands shared governance, accreditation, and faculty workload, and who has done AI work inside a university system. Alex Goryachev advises the California State University system, 22 campuses and 460,000 students, on its $17M ChatGPT Edu deployment. He is Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University and holds academic partnerships with the University of Texas System, Cornell, Imperial College London, and the National University of Singapore. Education programs he has delivered include Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Delaware, and UT Dallas.
Does the Educating for the Unknown keynote work for faculty audiences?
Faculty audiences are a core fit for Educating for the Unknown, which runs at convocations, faculty senates, and professional development days as well as cabinet and board sessions. Faculty hear a straight account of what AI changes in teaching and research, uses that protect academic rigor, and a speaker who works with universities rather than sells to them. Alex Goryachev is Innovator-in-Residence at Tulane University and advises the 460,000-student California State University system. Every session is customized to the institution.
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