By Jose Antonio Lanz
Publication Date: 2026-06-11 20:25:00
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, has a message for the class of 2026: He hears their boos.
This spring, graduating students across the United States interrupted commencement speeches the moment anyone mentioned AI. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt got booed at the University of Arizona. A real estate executive got booed at the University of Central Florida. The pattern was consistent enough that Smith, upon returning from Princeton’s reunion weekend, sat down to write about it.
The result is a 3,000-word blog post that starts talking about how things were in 1838 and ends begging students to do all they can to move on with AI and find technology that gives them purpose.
“The reactions of this year’s graduates are a powerful wake-up call for the tech sector,” he writes. “Hopefully, leaders across our industry will listen and seek to learn from this reaction.”
Smith opens by comparing AI to the invention of the camera. French painter Paul Delaroche, upon…
