The future of AI is human: Key insights from the 2026 Summit
As AI transforms what is possible, how do we ensure that people – particularly students – remain at the center of that transformation?
That is the question that education and industry leaders grappled with during the 2026 Agentic AI and the Student Experience summit from Oct. 20-22 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Optimistic, cautionary and practical – summit speakers represented unique perspectives in answering that very question, but they largely converge on the belief that AI’s impact will be determined by how intentionally we use it, who we empower and whether we’re willing to rethink established approaches to learning and work.
Read on for key insights and takeaways from this year’s summit presenters:
Purpose must guide progress
“AI without a purpose is an amoral outcome, which will result in immoral acts.” - Michael M. Crow, president, Arizona State University (Read the full story)
“We, as higher ed, have a mission. Artificial intelligence is an important technology disrupting the world, and many pushing forward with AI are driven by profit. Higher ed: We have the ability to redefine that and say, how can AI serve humanity? How can this be a tool that empowers humans? Let's lean into AI and show how this is a tool to support humans, not replace.” - Roger Kohler, director, AI solutions and architecture, AI Acceleration, Arizona State University
“Where I see institutions really making a difference is to start from the student experience. Start from the problem. What are the challenges that students are experiencing? Is it in financial aid? Is it in their transcripts? Is it in figuring out what their pathways are to a degree efficiently? What are those challenges that we are trying to solve, and when AI is applied to those challenges, that's where we see the biggest impact.” - Valerie Singer, general manager, AWS Global Education
Human agency and inclusion must remain central
“Please never underestimate your role as an educator, as an adult, as a humanist, as a manager, as a leader, as a director. The power and the empowerment of giving someone agency. It is a rare blessing.” - Chris Howard, executive vice president and chief operating officer, ASU
“Institutions that I think have the highest capability of transformation are the institutions that are involving students from the get-go, the institutions that understand access, pay attention to it, understand that our part of the work that we would need to do is ensure that our students are able to work with rather than under AI.
If we're not thinking about that, that is extremely problematic.” - Alphia Possamai-Inesedy, Pro Vice Chancellor of Student Success, Western Sydney University
“There's a Cherokee value that I keep thinking about as I'm in community with you all this week, and that is to watch over and wait for everyone. We need to understand that some people need a little extra care, some people need some personalization, and you all are here doing that work, and I commend you for that.” - Paula Starr, chief information officer, Cherokee Nation and 2026 Impact Award recipient (Read the full story)
The age of AI requires a new commitment to learning
“Something that drawing and writing personally about AI has made clear to me is that we're in a moment where we need a greater conceptual clarity about what we're engaging with when we engage with AI and machine intelligence.” - Amy Kurzweil, cartoonist and author of Artificial: A Love Story. (Read the full story)
“I think we are entering an age of catalytic curiosity, and what I mean by that is I just think we're going to be tackling questions we've been wanting to get answers to for a very long time, whether it's curing cancer or even some of the larger kind of questions within quantum physics. I think the issue right now in this age of catalytic curiosity, part of what we have got to do is become more like really embrace power learning and like get learning across the institution.” - Mark Milliron, president, National University
“The pace of change is such that developers need to learn something new every day: a new technique, a new model, a new version of a model, a new tool, a new way to use your model, a new way to interrogate your AI tools to learn more about your applications. A learning component must be part of your daily routine, your daily cycle.” - Jeff Barr, Vice President & Chief Evangelist, Amazon Web Services (Read the full story)
This is a moment for bold reinvention
“Let's take this moment as a moment of reimagination, rethinking, and transformation.” - The Honorable Sethuraman Panchanathan, university professor of technology and innovation, ASU, and former director, U.S. National Science Foundation
“Be competitive, be ambitious, be audacious, be an imagineer, and fucking bring it.” - will.i.am, founder and CEO of FYI.AI, professor of practice, ASU
“Resistance is futile. We will be assimilated. The question is: Is our society being atomized, and what is happening to our community, and what's happening to human love?” - John Markoff, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
These insights point toward a shared conclusion: The future of AI is deeply human. It will be defined not simply by technological progress, but by the human choices that guide it. What’s more, AI’s greatest potential lies not in replacing human capabilities, but in expanding them. Realizing that potential will require a renewed commitment to purpose, inclusion, continuous learning and courageous institutional change.
