From Access to Intention: What It Will Take to Lead AI Well in Higher Ed
by Claire L. Brady, EdD
A new report from Gallup, the Walton Family Foundation, and GSV Ventures—The AI Paradox: More Exposure, Less Confidence Among Gen Z—offers one of the clearest signals yet about how today’s students are really experiencing artificial intelligence.
Based on a national survey of more than 1,500 young people ages 14 to 29, the findings challenge a common assumption: that increased access to AI naturally leads to increased confidence, trust, and readiness.
It doesn’t.
Instead, the data reveals a more complex reality. Gen Z is using AI, but their optimism is declining. They recognize its importance, but question its impact. They know they’ll need it, but aren’t fully convinced it’s helping them learn, think, or prepare for the future.
This blog series breaks down the most important implications for higher education leaders—and, more importantly, what to do next. Because this moment isn’t just about adopting AI tools. It’s about how we lead through a shift that is already reshaping how students learn, work, and make meaning of their education.
Part 3/3
If the first two parts of this series tell us anything, it's this: we don't have an AI access problem. We have an AI leadership moment.
The latest Voices of Gen Z report from Gallup, the Walton Family Foundation, and GSV Ventures makes that unmistakably clear. Students are using AI — many of them regularly. And yet their confidence isn't growing alongside that use.
That gap between exposure and confidence is exactly where higher education has to lead.
What We're Actually Seeing
This isn't resistance. It's discernment.
Gen Z is asking thoughtful, complicated questions about AI's role in their learning, their thinking, and their futures. They're not blindly embracing it. They're not fully rejecting it either. They're sitting in the tension.
And if we're honest, so are most of our institutions.
For the past two years, much of higher education's response to AI has centered on access — expanding tools, drafting policies, running pilots, offering training. All of that matters. But this report is a reminder that access doesn't automatically translate into confidence, trust, or meaningful use. Without intentional design, it may do the opposite.
Students are asking whether AI is helping them think more deeply or simply helping them finish faster. They're weighing efficiency against learning, speed against skill, convenience against long-term growth.
That is not a technical problem. That is a leadership challenge.
Moving From Access to Intention
If higher education is going to meet this moment, the conversation has to shift — not away from AI, but deeper into it.
From "Do we allow AI?" to "How do we design learning with AI?"
From "How do we keep up?" to "What kind of graduates are we trying to develop?"
From "What tools should we adopt?" to "What capacities do we want to strengthen?"
This is where leadership shows up. Students are already forming their own answers to these questions. If institutions don't provide clarity, students will fill in the gaps themselves — with assumptions, skepticism, or disengagement.
What Intentional Leadership Looks Like Right Now
Design learning experiences that make thinking visible. If students are worried about losing critical thinking skills, assignments should require them to demonstrate their reasoning — not just their outputs. AI can support the process. It cannot replace it.
Build AI literacy as a core competency, not an add-on. Knowing how to use AI tools is no longer optional. But more importantly, students need to understand how AI works, where it fails, and how to evaluate what it produces.
Be explicit about values. Students are watching how institutions use AI — in advising, in communication, in decision-making. Name what role AI plays in your institution, and be equally clear about where it won't.
Create space for exploration without penalty. When trust is low, students need low-stakes opportunities to experiment — not just to use AI, but to question it, challenge it, and understand it on their own terms.
Align AI strategy with institutional mission. The institutions that lead won't be the ones with the most tools. They'll be the ones that make the clearest connection between AI use and their core educational purpose.
The Opportunity in Front of Us
There's a tendency to read Gen Z's skepticism as a barrier. It isn't. They're not asking us to remove AI from their experience. They're asking us to help them use it well — to think with it rather than instead of it, to build skills rather than bypass them, to trust it because they understand it.
That is the work of higher education. And it's work we are uniquely positioned to do. Higher education doesn't just respond to moments like this. We shape them
Note: Image created using ChatGPT
