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.

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.

There’s more to the story! Read the full article in CC Daily.