William & Mary joins Elon University for AI Summit, exploring the human side of artificial intelligence

Faculty, staff, and students from William & Mary recently attended the AI Summit at Elon University, a collaborative two-day event hosted in partnership with the Raymond A. Mason School of Business. The summit examined how higher education can prepare students for an AI-driven future while emphasizing human connection, ethical decision-making, and critical thinking.

The partnership between the two institutions grew from conversations following William & Mary’s AI Summit last year. Katherine Guthrie played a key role in planning this year’s event, working alongside leadership from Elon’s Love School of Business to create a program focused on AI fluency, workforce readiness, curriculum innovation, and the human skills that remain essential in an AI-driven world.

Sessions provided a platform for attendees to explore practical applications of AI in business education. Phil Wagner reflected, “One of the most valuable parts of the summit was the chance to sit with colleagues from across institutions and think practically about what AI fluency should look like in business education. It is easy to talk about AI in abstract terms, but students need applied experiences, and that’s exactly what we designed over the weekend.”

Wagner emphasized the importance of moving beyond debates over AI’s role in education to focus on practical, ethical integration. “The more important question now is how we help students, faculty, and organizations use these tools productively and ethically—and, perhaps most importantly, provide folks an opportunity to evaluate the utility, ethics, potential, and consequence of integrating AI into our workflows. The summit reflected what I think higher education does best: convene smart people, ask hard questions, and build shared approaches to problems that no single institution can solve alone.”

Dawn Edmiston echoed the summit’s focus on human-centered skills, noting, “In the AI era, the most important skills are the human ones: critical thinking, judgment, curiosity, empathy, and the executive functioning to manage complexity and change.”

Attendees left the summit with a renewed sense of collaboration and purpose. “It was such a joy to be on Elon’s beautiful campus and to meet new colleagues and collaborators,” Wagner said. “I’m excited to welcome those folks to our campus next year as we enter the third year of this partnership.”

For further details on the summit and insights from Elon University, read their recap here.