Parker Jones
- Cal Poly student Parker Jones says his classmates use AI tools more than professors expect.
- Students use AI tools like ChatGPT for practical tasks, while professors focus on potential misuse.
- Jones urges professors to bring AI into teaching rather than leaving students to adapt on their own.
Parker Jones, a Cal Poly software engineering student, didn't set out to challenge his professors. Now, that's effectively what he's doing.
After interviewing more than 50 fellow students about how they use AI tools like ChatGPT, Jones came away with a clear conclusion: students are moving faster than the faculty meant to teach them.
What he found on campus sharply contrasts with the dominant narrative pushed by universities and, often, professors themselves.
While headlines fixate on cheating and misuse, Jones found that most students use AI in more mundane, practical ways, such as a "24/7 office hours" assistant. They ask follow-up questions, clarify confusing lectures, organize assignments, and refine their thinking. It's less about shortcuts and more about staying in the flow of learning, according to findings he published recently on OpenAI's ChatGPT for Education blog.
Yet despite how widespread and normalized this behavior has become, many professors remain hesitant, silent, or openly skeptical, says Jones, a former member of OpenAI's student lab program, which brings undergraduates together to discuss how they're using ChatGPT.
"The most common thing is not addressing it," he told me in a recent interview.
When AI does come up, it's often framed negatively. That disconnect creates a strange dynamic where students rely heavily on tools they feel they're not supposed to talk about, he said.
For Jones, institutional inertia is the real problem, rather than AI misuse. He expected computer science professors, in particular, to lead the charge. Instead, he found many lagging behind, waiting for clearer rules or more research before integrating AI into their teaching.
"There's a sort of tendency in the academia space to wait and get things right. And I think that's well intended," he said. "I think it's also causing us to miss the moment."
Cal Poly responds
Cal Poly spokesman Matt Lazier said the college offers an AI and machine learning concentration within its computer science and software engineering major, supported by expanding initiatives from the Noyce School of Applied Computing.
These include a coming Nvidia-powered Advanced AI Factory and a new data science bachelor's program launching in Fall 2027. Events like PolyPrompt also reinforce hands-on AI learning.
AI is also integrated across disciplines, co-curricular programs, and other efforts, providing students with broad, practical exposure to AI technologies, ethics, and real-world applications, he added.
Students have other concerns about AI
Still, Jones's concerns were echoed recently in another interview I did, this time with Kiran Maya Sheikh, who graduated in June 2025 from UC Irvine with a degree in computer science. She said she was taught programming languages and other software development and deployment skills, but AI tools were not on the curriculum.
Other recent graduates have previously spoken with Business Insider about unique challenges they face in the tech job market, such as AI upending the workplace.
"With AI in particular, I felt like I graduated a bit too early," Sheikh told me.
With limited official curriculum support, students are teaching themselves and each other how to use new AI tools, Jones said. He described how he introduced AI coding tools, such as OpenAI's Codex, to classmates during a senior project, dramatically improving their output.
That kind of bottom-up adoption is happening across campuses, largely without formal guidance, he told me.
Jones isn't arguing for abandoning fundamentals or blindly embracing AI. In fact, many students he spoke with are cautious about overreliance on AI. But he believes universities should meet students where they are: already using these tools, already experimenting, already adapting.
His message to professors is simple: catch up, or at least join the conversation. Right now, students are navigating one of the biggest technological shifts in education largely on their own.
Sign up for BI's Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.