From Hype to Human-Centered: How Universities Can Lead in the Age of AI

From Hype to Human-Centered: How Universities Can Lead in the Age of AI

The emergence of AI in the workplace has done more than introduce new tools; it’s redefined how we think about work, learning, and the role of human expertise. This sentiment is underscored in Glassdoor’s Employee Confidence Index, where employees reported feeling “uncertainty” in their future workplace prospects at a rate 80% higher than the same time last year, and only 45% feel optimistic about their company’s six-month business outlook.

In an environment of nonstop change, professionals at all levels are asking: How do I keep up, stay relevant, and make responsible decisions?

As the senior learning designer at Ziplines Education, a career accelerator, my team and I help universities answer that question, not just for themselves, but for the growing population of working adults seeking flexible, targeted learning experiences that align with the real-world shifts AI is driving.

A Nonlinear Path to Purpose

My journey into this work wasn’t direct. At the age of 17, my family moved from California to Cairo. I had dreams of attending UC Berkeley, but suddenly I was navigating a new country, a new school system, and questions about whether I could stay on track.

What I saw in Egypt opened my eyes to deep educational inequities. At my private school, students had every advantage. Just blocks away, students in public schools relied on paid tutoring because teachers withheld lessons to earn extra income outside the classroom. I began to understand that access to quality education, whether in Cairo or California, is often dictated by privilege. That realization shaped my career.

After teaching internationally and earning a graduate degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I’ve made it my mission to design alternative learning pathways, ones that make high-quality education accessible, relevant, and human-centered.

Working at Ziplines Education has given me the opportunity to work towards that mission.  We aim to provide university leaders with a partner in designing, launching, and scaling high-impact, non-degree programs that support professionals at all career levels in moving beyond fear or hype and building the critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and adaptability necessary to use AI with purpose. That is the kind of education that redistributes power and gives working adults agency in their fast moving lives.

Why Universities Need a New AI Strategy

In 2022, AI burst into the public consciousness, but the truth is, AI has been in development for decades. What’s new and important for our purposes is the accessibility and the urgency. Professionals across industries, from healthcare to marketing to project management, are expected to use AI tools to work faster, justify resources, and innovate with less.

This urgency has created a gap: adult learners want to upskill, but traditional institutions often lack the internal resources to respond at pace.

That’s where Ziplines comes in.

We work closely with universities to co-design and deliver industry-aligned, non-degree certificate programs in high-demand areas, including AI literacy and AI-powered automated workflows. We help universities build capacity quickly without sacrificing academic integrity, outcomes, or brand alignment. Our instructional design approach is rooted in real-world scenarios, active learning, and expert modeling, so students aren’t just consuming content; they’re applying it in context.

Beyond the Buzzwords: What Learners Really Need

One of the greatest tensions we navigate is the polarization in the public discourse around AI. On the one hand, there is overhype. On the other hand, skepticism and fear. Professional learners are often caught in the middle, unsure how to evaluate tools, adopt them ethically, or explain their use to managers and peers.

We believe continuing education has a vital role to play here, not just by teaching how to use AI, but by helping learners ask better questions:

• When should I use AI in my workflow, and when should I rely on my own expertise?
• How do I disclose my AI usage responsibly?
• What does it mean to use AI ethically and with purpose?

In our AI prompting course, for instance, we revised early modules to better address questions of intellectual property, selective use, and responsible disclosure. We learned that learners needed more than how-tos; they need frameworks for judgment. They needed to observe how experts make decisions on their AI usage in real-time.

That’s why we emphasize expert modeling, an instructional technique that not only guides learners through the technical steps but also makes transparent the human thinking, trade-offs, and ethical considerations behind them.

Supporting University Innovation with Speed and Substance

Universities are facing their own version of the speed-vs-quality dilemma. Program leaders know they need to offer relevant, skills-based programs, but staffing constraints, long internal timelines, and lack of bandwidth can delay action.

Our model is designed to remove those barriers.

Ziplines enables universities to launch high-quality, market-responsive programs in a matter of months, not years. We bring instructional design expertise, labor market alignment, and flexible delivery formats (including live sessions, asynchronous modules, and micro-credential pathways) to the table. Universities bring their academic credibility, brand trust, and access to local talent pipelines.

This results in programs that resonate with working professionals, drive enrollment, and generate revenue, without asking faculty to do it all themselves.

Building for Change, Not Perfection

One of our biggest insights over the past year is this: designing for adaptability matters more than designing for perfection.

The AI landscape changes weekly. New features, tools, and platforms emerge faster than most curriculum committees can process. So instead of chasing every change, we teach mindsets. We teach learners how to respond to change, troubleshoot, and iterate. And we support universities in designing learning environments that model those same principles: agile, contextual, and real. Because we know what’s happening now also holds value, we use our live sessions to relay what’s hot and new. Our learners are going to work on Monday, showing their co-workers what they learned with an expert just the week prior.

AI Is a Human Conversation

At its core, AI education is not just about tools. It’s about people. How people make decisions. How they use technology to enhance and not replace their work. It’s also about how those people adapt in the face of ambiguity.

That’s why, in all our work at Ziplines, we place humans at the center of the experience we’re building. We help universities build programs that reflect the way professionals actually work and learn messy, nonlinear, and rich with nuance.

With digital transformation impacting our daily work life, it’s mission-critical to empower professionals at all levels with the skills needed to harness technology with confidence for growth and innovation.