Artificial intelligence is giving students unprecedented access to information, research and tools that can help them learn, apply to college and prepare for careers.
But a panel of education and career experts argued that the technology is also making qualities such as judgment, emotional intelligence, resilience and authentic experience more important.
In a discussion moderated by New York Post reporter Lydia Moynihan, Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, Nirbhay Kumar, founder of Pinnacle Paths and Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, explored how generative AI is changing education and the workplace.
AI is already reshaping the college admissions process
According to Rim, one of AI’s most immediate effects on college admissions is the amount of information students can access and process quickly. Instead of researching individual universities through dozens of webpages, students can use tools such as ChatGPT and Claude to identify programs that closely match their interests.
That has encouraged some applicants to look beyond the most recognizable universities and investigate specific academic programs within schools. AI can help students quickly narrow a long list of options and identify institutions that appear to fit their goals.
When it comes to applications themselves, however, Rim warned against using AI as a substitute for personal experience. He said students regularly ask whether they should intentionally introduce typos or other imperfections into essays so their work will not appear AI-generated. (Pro tip: Don’t do that.)
His advice was instead to make applications as specific and personal as possible. Students should write about what motivated them, how experiences made them feel and why they pursued particular projects or activities.
AI can help brainstorm or edit, Rim said, but the central story should come from the student. In fact, he suggested using tools like ChatGPT to see what generic essay topics it generates, specifically so students know which clichéd ideas to avoid.
Brackett agreed that personal experience remains important in writing. He said that while AI can generate a generic narrative around an experience, it cannot replace the expression of an individual’s lived experience and emotions.
Rim also cautioned against allowing AI to generate massive lists of disparate extracurricular activities and awards without considering whether those activities have any genuine connection to the student.
Instead of a superficial “smorgasbord” of clubs, he advocated for a “singular focus,” encouraging students to get deeply involved in one specific area to make a genuine, authentic impact.
From career exploration to proof of work
For students who are finishing their college education, job searching in the current environment can be daunting given the widespread fear that AI will radically transform the employment landscape in the near future.
However, Kumar, the CEO of Pinnacle Paths, a career coaching and advisory firm, compared the current AI revolution to the invention of the printing press. He noted that today’s students are the first generation in human history with not only limitless access to knowledge, but the immediate capability to execute on it.
Rather than eliminating opportunities, Kumar said AI should be seen as an unprecedented tool that expands them for students entering the workforce.
Universities are beginning to adjust programs to account for newer professions and industries, but the job market is already far beyond what educational institutions traditionally train students for. Students, according to Kumar, should consider a wider range of career paths than the traditional finance and consulting tracks that have long attracted graduates of selective universities.
AI can be particularly useful during the early stages of career exploration. Students can use it to research industries, subsectors, companies and roles before deciding how their interests and skills might fit into a particular career.
He also emphasized what he called “proof of work.” According to Kumar, hiring managers increasingly want candidates to demonstrate something they have built, researched or developed, including projects that show they know how to use AI while also exercising their own judgment.
Rather than asking an AI system to produce the finished work, Kumar described using it to challenge or test work a student has already created. A student could, for example, create a virtual AI job talk with different company stakeholders to practice the kind of on-your-feet thinking that will separate successful candidates from also-rans.
The goal, he said, is not necessarily to arrive at a perfect answer. It is to demonstrate the ability to create something, question it, develop a framework and explain the reasoning behind it.
Knowledge and emotional intelligence still matter
Brackett, the lone academic on the panel, repeatedly cautioned that effective AI use still requires foundational knowledge. He said students who have not read deeply enough about a subject may lack the context needed to ask useful questions or evaluate the answers an AI system provides.
He argued that students need accumulated knowledge and expertise before they can fully benefit from having AI critique or expand their ideas. One way educators can test that understanding, he said, is through presentations and follow-up questions that require students to explain their work without relying on an AI system.
Educational institutions are already considering greater use of oral presentations and in-person evaluations as AI makes traditional written assignments harder to assess. But displaying mastery of a subject is only part of the way education will evolve in the age of AI. Critical-thinking skills will remain the foundation, but Brackett also focused on the emotional skills students will need. Because AI can increasingly perform cognitive and workplace tasks, he said human relationships and interpersonal abilities remain important areas of development.
He argued that leaders establishing AI policies in schools and other organizations need to understand emotional intelligence and child and adolescent development and implement that understanding in the classroom.
That philosophy applies to parenting, too. Parents need to support children through difficulty without automatically rescuing them from every uncomfortable experience, he said. Experiencing failure and manageable discomfort can help people develop resilience and learn how to solve problems. AI makes getting the answer to questions too easy, and parents shouldn’t offload their duties as the primary educators of their children to chatbots.
How students can use AI
The panelists described several ways students can incorporate AI into their education without turning over the entire learning process to it. Rim suggested that students can use AI to give further explanation of difficult topics, like advanced mathematics, and Kumar described a system his son created that connects concepts from his college courses with current examples from the sports industry, helping him understand abstract material in a real-world context.
Brackett similarly argued that effort itself has inherent psychological value. He noted that humans naturally feel positive emotions and self-worth after making an effort — an outcome the panel likened to the “Ikea effect.”
If a chatbot completes a project for them, students miss out on that psychological reward and can end up feeling like an imposter. Because of this, students need opportunities to practice real-world interactions, deal with difficult conversations and learn from unsuccessful experiences rather than depending on technology to provide responses whenever a problem arises.
Brackett similarly argued that effort itself has value. Students need opportunities to practice real-world interactions, deal with difficult conversations and learn from unsuccessful experiences rather than depending on technology to provide responses whenever a problem arises.
The panelists also discussed AI’s potential to eliminate some routine work. Brackett recalled the time students once spent finding, photocopying and summarizing research articles. AI can perform some of that preliminary work quickly, he said, potentially leaving students more time to use the information creatively.
The Bottom Line
The discussion ended with a question about whether AI could eventually become an alternative to a traditional university education.
The panelists agreed that college remains valuable not only because of classroom instruction but because students meet peers, explore different subjects and spend time around motivated people.
However, AI is creating more alternative educational options, particularly for students who already have a strong idea of what they want to build. Kumar pointed to programs like the Thiel Fellowship as alternative routes for hyper-focused builders, noting that AI now allows non-coders to build entire companies and platforms from scratch, serving as a massive accelerator for entrepreneurial students.
Still, the panel viewed that highly independent path as appropriate for only a small minority of students.
Parents generally want their children to be happy, healthy, purposeful and capable of forming strong relationships, rather than simply achieving the highest grades or test scores. That leaves a role for both AI and traditional education. Technology can contribute to learning and productivity, while education, friendships and human relationships continue to serve purposes that go beyond the information an AI system can provide.
This article was written by Brooklyn-based financial journalist and Commerce Editor for the New York Post Will Kenton. Specializing in investing, personal finance and retirement planning, Will’s expertise is rooted in behavioral economics — a field he explored as associate editor of the New School Economics Review. Will aims to help readers navigate the “predictable irrationality” that influences financial decisions, providing practical real-world solutions to student loan debt, investments, mortgages and more. Before joining The Post in 2026, Will covered the intersection of money, economics and culture for Investopedia, AP News, Business Insider and TIME Stamped.
