.png)
About the Episode
Got a story to tell? An innovative idea to share? Fill out our guest nomination form and let's chat!
About the Episode:
In the final 2025 episode of Higher Ed Pulse, host Mallory Willsea curates the most impactful AI-focused conversations of the year, featuring expert voices like Soup Campbell, Jeremy Tiers, Jason Smith, Mike Bell, Marina Cooper, and John Carrere. This mashup episode explores how AI reshaped the student journey, enrollment strategies, and campus operations. More than a tech trend, AI became a spotlight—revealing the cracks, contradictions, and opportunities institutions can no longer afford to ignore.
Key Takeaways
- 2025 was the year AI in higher education moved from experimentation to expectation—especially in search, marketing, and engagement.
- Gen Z students adopted AI fast, but remain selective and cautious about how institutions use it.
- AI exposed persistent challenges in enrollment marketing, content strategy, and student trust that have long been overlooked.
- Guests like Jeremy Tiers and Sue Campbell highlight gaps between student expectations and institutional responses.
- Insights from leaders like Jason Smith, Mike Bell, Marina Cooper, and John Carrere offer a cross-campus view into how AI is forcing a mindset shift in strategy and execution.
The Student-Led Shift: Gen Z, AI, and Institutional Blind Spots
This year’s biggest revelation? Students were already living in an AI-integrated world—long before institutions drafted policies or built tech stacks. In the episode’s opening segment, Jeremy Tiers and Soup Campbell share findings from their survey of nearly 9,000 high school seniors. Their research reveals a nuanced relationship between Gen Z and AI: they use it constantly, trust it selectively, and set clear boundaries on how they want institutions to engage them with it.
What’s driving this cautious optimism? Students see AI as a tool, not a solution. They want help brainstorming ideas, drafting essays, and navigating options—but not at the cost of authenticity or privacy. This is where the disconnect starts: while marketers lean into automation and personalization, students are evaluating how and why those tools are being used. Transparency and consent matter more than convenience.
In this landscape, student success strategies must evolve. Institutions can no longer operate with outdated assumptions about tech adoption. Gen Z is setting the tone, and colleges must follow—not lead—with intention, ethics, and open communication.
AI Didn’t Cause Higher Ed’s Challenges—It Made Them Obvious
Throughout this mashup, Mallory threads together a theme that’s both provocative and sobering: AI didn’t create new problems in higher education. It simply forced long-ignored issues into the spotlight. Jason Smith, Marina Cooper, and others point to operational inefficiencies, clunky content systems, and outdated recruitment strategies that are now painfully visible.
In the era of AI, institutions can no longer afford to delay decisions. Whether it’s overhauling a bloated website, rethinking a CRM strategy, or fixing the disconnect between marketing and admissions, these problems can’t be hidden behind manual processes or institutional silos anymore. AI has raised the bar—and students expect a seamless, smart experience.
For enrollment marketers, this is a call to action. Relevance isn’t optional, and performance indicators in education are now tied directly to digital agility. Marketers need to evaluate not just what they’re doing, but why—and whether their efforts are aligned with the student journey in an AI-driven world.
Trust and Transformation: Rethinking How Institutions Use AI
Trust is the real battleground—and as this episode makes clear, institutions haven’t earned it yet. In a segment featuring Mike Bell and John Carrere, we hear how schools are trying to balance innovation with integrity. AI can power personalization, but if students don’t understand or agree with how it’s being used, the tech will fail to connect.
Today’s students want control. They’re okay with AI recommending programs or offering chatbot support—but not with institutions making assumptions, scraping personal data, or sending automated messages that feel tone-deaf. This is where marketing strategy must evolve from efficiency-driven to student-centered.
Higher ed doesn’t just need smarter tools—it needs smarter values. That’s the difference between adoption and transformation. And that’s what separates the schools that will thrive in the AI era from those that will struggle to keep up.
Connect With Our Host:
Mallory Willsea
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorywillsea/
https://twitter.com/mallorywillsea
About The Enrollify Podcast Network: The Higher Ed Pulse is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, chances are you’ll like other Enrollify shows too!
Some of our favorites include Generation AI and Confessions of a Higher Education Social Media Manager.
Enrollify is produced by Element451 — the next-generation AI student engagement platform helping institutions create meaningful and personalized interactions with students. Learn more at element451.com.
.svg)
.svg)
