Recap: A Genius Walked into my Office
Catching up with an old friend, a reminder of how entrepreneurs engage the world.
A friend and former colleague dropped by this week. His oldest is starting at UGA this fall, and he was in town for orientation. He left UGA a few years ago and assumed a major leadership role at one of the country’s top research institutions. It was good to catch up. By training and instinct, he’s an entrepreneur, the kind of person who sees around corners and isn’t afraid to disrupt things in order to build something new. I’m more conservative by nature, more inclined to reform and extend than to tear down and recreate. So it took me a few minutes to reorient myself to the way he thinks: fast, bold, and unafraid of starting over. We had a wide-ranging conversation about AI and the future of higher education, and I left reminded that the way entrepreneurs think is fundamentally different. His thoughts were insightful and worth unpacking here.
The way 14-year-olds and 18-year-olds engage with AI is different.
As we compared notes on how our institutions are navigating higher ed’s fourth major disruption, the conversation turned to AI. That’s when he made an interesting point: the way his children, ages 18 and 14, interact with GenAI couldn’t be more different.
The older, soon-to-be-a-UGA-freshman, is curious about AI but cautious. They see it as a tool, not a partner. They prefer the old way: reading deeply, writing thoughtfully, working through problems on their own. GenAI might help around the edges, but it’s not where they start. That mindset mirrors what I’ve seen in my own conversations with other students preparing to start college this fall. They’re not dismissive of GenAI, but they’re not native to it either. They grew up with Google, not Claude.
His warning was clear: in just four years, a new cohort will arrive on campus expecting AI to be the default: embedded in how they learn, how they navigate services, and how the institution engages with them. This isn’t just a new toolset; it’s a new mental model. And in a shrinking enrollment landscape, students will choose colleges based on how seriously they’ve embraced that reality. That’s why we landed on three shifts higher education must begin now to stay relevant and competitive.
The 2029 cohort will expect GenAI to be deeply embedded in the curriculum. For them, there’s no debate: using GenAI to support writing and problem-solving is normal. Institutions that still treat it as a novelty or a threat will feel outdated. Yet core curriculum reform remains one of the hardest changes to undertake, given faculty ownership, shared governance, and the entrenched advocates for every course. But here’s the reality: students won’t wait. If the curriculum doesn’t reflect the world they already live in, they’ll choose a college where it does.
The 2029 cohort will be more entrepreneurial, but in a broader, more creative sense. That doesn’t mean they’ll all be launching startups. It means they’ll approach problems with a builder’s mindset because GenAI tools have lowered the barrier to building. They won’t be waiting for permission or instruction. What will matter less is the ability to manually produce something from scratch; what will matter more is the ability to prompt, iterate, and direct GenAI toward new forms of output. This generation won’t just consume or complete; they’ll create. And they’ll expect the institution to equip and encourage that instinct.
The 2029 cohort will expect to engage the university through AI-first channels. Email and phone calls to admissions, financial aid, or the bursar will feel outdated, quaint even. This generation will expect a seamless, chat-based interface as their primary point of contact. The leading institutions won’t just offer AI chatbots; they’ll assign each student a personalized, GenAI-powered digital twin at the time of application. That digital twin will serve as a persistent guide, connecting them to academic advising, course content, administrative support, and campus life. Institutions that build this AI-infused engagement layer will stand out, not just for their innovation, but for their ability to grow enrollment and maintain selectivity in a fiercely competitive market.
It was a good visit. The kind that reminds you why certain colleagues leave a lasting mark. He’s always challenged those around him to think differently, not for the sake of disruption, but to advance the mission of higher education with creativity, urgency, and courage. Our conversation left me energized and a bit unsettled in the best possible way. The next generation is coming fast. Whether we’re ready or not will depend on how quickly we can shift from pilot projects to institutional commitments, from talking about AI to building with it; on purpose and at scale.
".. they’ll assign each student a personalized, GenAI-powered digital twin at the time of application. That digital twin will serve as a persistent guide, connecting them to academic advising, course content, administrative support, and campus life."
That one idea has really made me start thinking about how to use that "digital twin" throughout the university academic advisory and guided help areas.
- Answering a questionnaire the equivalent of a lifestyle, passion, intellectual relationship matching app. The AI generates those suggested paths of academic studies that best fits with their strengths. Tweak as needed with suggestions as the student. If your desires change, then communicate that to the AI and it will change its suggestions based upon course work already taken. A path guide.
- Students see their curriculum for their chosen major or area and if given permissions, they enter their grades for courses, project grades, extracurricular activities, club activities, and anything else that might steer the AI into suggesting clubs, societies, additional electives, minors to shoot for, or in some circumstances, a suggestion to change direction entirely to a different major.
- Using the results of the above, the AI can suggest where weaknesses may lay and suggest how to strengthen those areas through directed tutoring, learning certificates, training, practice lessons, or alternate classes.
- Assuming your Registrar/Academic control body are accurately updating course curriculum in the online academic DB, the AI could give alternate classes that meet requirements for their major but are perhaps better suited towards their strengths, e.g. MATH 241 = BUSN 221 in equivalency.
The possibilities go on and on. As long as that "digital twin" is updated consistently by the student, the suggested paths and helpful tips could be extremely valuable. Perhaps it would replace much of the busy work for Academic Advisors allow them to tackle the more complicated conversations that require more person-to-person empathetic conversations.
AI in the use suggested is a fascinating opportunity to transform higher education dramatically and would beneficially integrate AI into the lives of every student's academic success and direction. This is assuming of course the proper governance and security precautions of the AI ability and data privacy.
Truly exciting times!