It is graduation season, which also means it is time to remind busy school leaders and administrators about what families actually remember most. Families may appreciate the speeches, decorations, music, and venue, but what they truly care about is the moment their student walks across the stage and hears their name announced properly. That is what they record on their phones, celebrate with relatives, and fondly look back on years later.
Recently, an Arizona community college faced intense backlash after an AI-powered system reportedly malfunctioned during commencement and skipped several graduates while reading names. Too quickly, the conversation shifted toward blaming “AI system failure.”
No, I see this less as a technological issue and more as a failure in school leadership and planning. And candidly, if this critique sounds harsh, it is because this feels like such an avoidable and unforced leadership error. No one should have been asking AI to handle this responsibility in the first place.
The reason this failure resonated so strongly is because commencement is not simply an operational event, but a milestone centered on recognition, dignity, and belonging. Names carry culture, history, sacrifice, and identity, particularly for multilingual families, immigrant families, and first-generation graduates whose educational journeys often represent years of perseverance and hope.
Pronunciation is part of inclusion as names matter. Culturally responsive leadership includes taking the time to learn and say names correctly. That is why this responsibility should receive more care, not less.
Using AI to Support, Not Replace, People
Schools spend months preparing commencement ceremonies. Leaders rehearse speeches, coordinate seating charts, organize music and photography, and carefully plan countless operational details. Yet somehow in the example cited above, the reading of student names was treated as a task that could simply be handed off to automation. Even more troubling was the apparent absence of a meaningful backup plan.
Every experienced administrator understands that technology can fail, which is exactly why safeguards and human oversight should have been built into the process from the start. Graduation season is not the time to experiment with new AI systems in ways that directly impact students and families.
Ironically, AI could have supported this process in far more thoughtful ways without replacing people. Institutions could have used AI tools to:
- Help announcers practice difficult pronunciations
- Review student-submitted recordings of their names
- Identify names that may require additional preparation
- Support multilingual pronunciation coaching
- Give human announcers more confidence and accuracy before the ceremony
This is the kind of AI use education should embrace: technology that supports people rather than replaces them.
The best uses of AI in education should help educators and leaders become more thoughtful and prepared. Instead, too many organizations are using AI to distance themselves from the moments that deserve the greatest care. In the process, schools risk damaging traditions and violating the rightful expectations families bring to these ceremonies.
Ultimately, this was leadership failure rooted in poor judgment, poor planning, and the mistaken belief that a deeply personal moment could be outsourced to automation. Graduation did not fail because of technology, but because leaders failed to protect the experience students and families deserved.
