changing business models

The 2031 Crisis in Higher Education: a stark scenario — from bryanalexander.org by Bryan Alexander — with commentary on a posting by Matthew F. Wilson, Ph.D.

Today’s post is about a scenario for higher ed’s future. It’s not from me, but created by one Matthew F. Wilson, director of Research Translation and AI Strategy at Baylor’s Institute for Global Human Flourishing. “The 2031 Crisis in Higher Education” is a dark one, imagining an accelerating decline for American colleges and universities.
…
One key assumption of this scenario is that most colleges and universities will be unable to redesign themselves for the changing time.
…
All of that said, it’s a fascinating and daunting scenario. It’s an interesting vision of my post-peak higher ed world.

A graphic from Matthew Wilson:

From DSC:
From what I can tell and have read, the things in the above graphic are already happening — and have been happening for some time now.

Also, I don’t think traditional institutions of higher education have the culture(s) it takes to change. So that part about colleges and U’s not being able to redesign themselves for the changing times could easily turn out to be the case.

New grads have to compete with AI for entry-level roles, hiring managers say [Ewen]

On 08/10/2026, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, credentialing, skills, society, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

New grads have to compete with AI for entry-level roles, hiring managers say — from hrdive.com by Lara Ewen
Nearly half of organizations now ask a senior worker plus AI to do the work of several entry-level grads, per a new report.

Dive Brief:

Hiring managers in the U.S. are betting on artificial intelligence over new graduates, with 48% saying they would rather invest in AI tools than hire and train a recent college graduate, according to a Friday report from ResumeTemplates.com.
The job market does still have space for 2026 graduates, and 65% of hiring managers said they planned to hire the same number or more this year compared to last year, per the report. However, 23% said they expected to hire fewer 2026 grads this year or none at all, and 12% didn’t know how many they would hire.
Most hiring concerns centered around workplace skills rather than credentials. Nearly 70% of hiring managers said they had “at least one character concern about recent grads,” including 33% who cited “a lack of work ethic.” Another 76% said recent grads required assistance understanding basic documents such as memos, contracts and budgets.

“Nikii Shaver on legal AI strategy, agentic governance, and trusted judgement” + an item on access to justice + an item from Zach Abramowitz

On 07/22/2026, in 21st century, Access to Justice (A2J), business, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, United States, by Daniel Christian

Nikii Shaver on legal AI strategy, agentic governance, and trusted judgement — from The Geek in Review Podcast

What does legal AI value look like once speed stops serving as the headline metric? In this episode of The Geek in Review, Greg Lambert and Marlene Gebauer speak with Nikki Shaver, co-founder and CEO of Legal Technology Jub and a member of the inaugural Financial Times Law 50. Shaver argues that law firms need to move beyond time saved toward efficacy: stronger output, stronger client outcomes, and more effective legal advice.

The conversation examines why the billable hour is far from finished yet no longer serves as the sole measure of legal value. Shaver compares hourly timekeeping to a taxi meter: useful for internal visibility, yet insufficient as the price signal for work transformed by AI. Workflow mapping, client discussions, and pricing discipline become central where an AI-enabled process compresses weeks of effort into hours.

Corporate legal departments are adopting AI at a faster pace, bringing new pressure to outside counsel. Some in-house teams see AI as a route to keep more work inside, while others see room for firms to take on work that previously sat outside budget limits. Shaver frames the strategic question around delivering more for clients, especially in practice areas where a firm holds differentiated expertise.

AI has not produced the promised empty calendar. Instead, lawyers report fuller schedules, longer documents, and a growing verification tax. Shaver flags the rise of 40-page forms, bloated redlines, and outputs that look polished yet lack sound reasoning. The episode makes a practical case for concise drafting, human review, and critical reasoning before any AI-generated material reaches a client or counterparty.

Agentic AI raises the stakes. Legal Technology Hub’s AI Agents in Law Map tracks hundreds of solutions, yet governance has not kept pace with new autonomy, connectors, and downstream system access. Shaver urges firms to establish traceability, unique identifiers, risk-based human oversight, enforceable policies, and a clear view of where data travels.

For firms aiming past baseline adoption, Shaver draws a line between routine personal use and strategic transformation. Daily use builds fluency, but competitive advantage grows from proprietary workflows, data foundations, client-facing collaboration spaces, and focused investment in the practices where a firm already excels. Her crystal-ball view is blunt: trusted judgment will become a scarce premium asset, AI-native firms will rise, and traditional firms will launch AI-native subsidiaries of their own.

Nonprofit, legal automation company design new AI tool to protect public benefits — from abajournal.com by Amanda Robert

An artificial intelligence tool from national nonprofit Frontline Justice and legal automation company Josef that aims to improve access to justice is rolling out across three states.

Frontline Q, an AI assistant that can help families navigate the complex Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is now available in Arizona, Texas and Alaska. Using a combination of federal, state and local regulations and with oversight from legal aid lawyers, it offers answers to questions about the program’s eligibility and appeal rules.

CLM is a Zombie, ALSPs are In Trouble and Outside Counsel Budgets Cut in Half: Episode 54, Wordsmith.ai CEO Ross McNairn — from legallydisrupted.com by Zach Abramowitz
The understated founder of one of the hottest legal AI startups on the market makes bold predictions

Though not necessarily related to legaltech, these items caught my eye as well:

LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire, citing ‘serious concerns’ over civil liberties and privacy — from techcrunch.com by Zack Whittaker

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is reportedly ending its deal with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that helps law enforcement track vehicles using thousands of its license plate cameras placed across the United States.

A senior LAPD official told news outlets, first reported by ABC7 and the Los Angeles Times, that the police department would allow its three-year contract with Flock to expire when it ends on Saturday. The department cited “serious concerns” around civil liberties and privacy. Flock’s cameras are operated by the Atlanta, Georgia-based company and not the LAPD.

‘Spraying and praying’ is ruining the Bay Area tech job market — from sfgate.com/ by Ariana Bindman
A vicious cycle of inefficiency is hurting recruiters and applicants

To survive this nightmarish job market, candidates are now “spraying and praying,” as one career coach described it — or paying resume services to blast out thousands of CVs per day to game the system and land a gig. However, according to experts in the tech industry who spoke with SFGATE, this is only creating a vicious cycle of inefficiency that hurts both workers and companies.

Higher Education Can’t Wait for the Future to Arrive (Lev Gonick, Arizona State University) [Salisbury]

On 07/07/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, innovation, instructional design, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, liberal arts, more voice more choice more control, skills, society, student-related, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Higher Education Can’t Wait for the Future to Arrive (Lev Gonick, Arizona State University) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury
“The biggest risk we face as a sector is assuming we can wait out AI.”

We have an opportunity right now to reorient the university around student experience—not as an aspiration, but as a necessity. I’m calling this shift TechEd, which I explore in detail in my LinkedIn series The TechEd Revolution.

AI poses a fundamental shift in how technology might empower students to own their discovery and educational journey, and to drastically reduce the friction that makes college so unappealing to so many.

To that end, we need to urgently redesign systems and opportunities around skills and competencies. That work should be far more advanced than it currently is. And one of the hardest challenges is rethinking how we operate as a workforce in academia.

AI’s getting expensive for us these days

On 06/23/2026, in Adobe, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, funding / grants, game-changing environment, graphics, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, library / librarians, new business models, Open AI, platforms, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, trends, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I used to be able to bring up Firefly on the web and use it “free” of charge — I didn’t have to go purchase tokens or credits. (I was actually paying for the Adobe Creative Cloud Pro suite of tools…so it wasn’t really free.)

But the other day I was trying to figure out what the latest pricing is at Adobe with that suite of tools and the use of credits for AI-based features. They say Adobe Creative Cloud Pro users get 4000 credits a month. Well, I have that suite and I’m still getting prompted to purchase credits. Firefly for individuals runs from $9.99 (2,000 credits/month) to $139.91 per month (50,000 credits per month). Not inexpensive, right? Below are other items along these lines.

The Era of Affordable AI Is Over. What Comes Next? — from builtin.com by Ameya Kanitkar
AI providers are shifting to usage-based billing for their services. AI fluency is more important now than ever to make the most of your tools to avoid unnecessary spending.

Summary: The era of cheap, flat-rate AI is ending as providers shift to usage-based billing. Every prompt now carries a direct cost, turning casual use into major budget risks, as seen when Uber depleted its 2026 AI budget in four months. Leaders must now track real-time value and token efficiency.

For a brief window, companies had access to the most transformative technology in a generation at the cost of a streaming subscription. Tools like ChatGPT put AI within reach of anyone with a browser and time for experimentation, while GitHub Copilot came in at just $10 a month, with token costs remaining relatively low. In the beginning, experimentation felt cost-effective, easy and relatively low-risk.

But that era is ending, and the bill is coming due faster than a lot of enterprise leaders anticipated.

The Fable of AI in Education — from downes.ca by Stephen Downes
Marc Watkins, Rhetorica, Jun 17, 2026

Tokenomics will be a hot topic of discussion on university campuses because, as Marc Watkins notes in this article, there is no realistic path forward to providing all students with access to advanced AI.

From this posting on LinkedIn.com from Dr. Nick Jackson:

And now there is a third layer emerging. Institutions are waking up to a systems-level question they are likely not remotely prepared for. Who pays for AI? How are budgets managed when there are unclear token consumption pricing models? How is AI procured? Who decides what tools get used and by whom and who gets access and at what level?

.

If AI Eats the Entry-Level Job, Where Do Young People Learn to Work? (Ryan Craig, Achieve Partners) — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury; via Ryan Craig
“The public should not be subsidizing colleges whose students lack relevant, paid, in-field work experience.”

That is the trap at the center of this conversation: everyone wants to hire someone with three years of experience, and almost no one wants to provide those three years.

And Ryan’s policy prescription is unusually concrete: pay employers to hire and train apprentices, following the countries that have scaled apprenticeship far faster than the U.S.; require colleges receiving federal student aid to provide relevant, paid, in-field work experience; and build a market of intermediaries that can make the whole thing operational.

Ryan’s view is that higher education remains critically important. But college without meaningful work experience may become a much worse bet, especially for students who cannot afford to guess wrong.

The unbundling of lawyer institutions [Furlong]

On 06/18/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, change, changing business models, game-changing environment, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, by Daniel Christian

The unbundling of lawyer institutions — from jordanfurlong.substack.com by Jordan Furlong
AI will strip law firms and law schools of their commodity features. Their future depends on whether they can rebuild around their highest-value functions and their trust-bearing core.

Two very different articles — one from a law professor, one from a legal technology analyst — crossed my desk last month. They each say something really important about law schools and law firms, respectively. But taken together, they point us towards what I think is an even more profound reality about lawyer institutions in the post-AI world.

At his eponymous Substack, Professor Michael Plaxton’s “To Our Next Law Dean” is really addressed to every dean of every law school, asking: After AI, how will you justify our existence? His concern is that AI is rapidly learning to perform many of the tasks law schools train students to do, and to deliver much of the general legal knowledge law schools provide at scale, including research, writing, analysis, and explanation.
…
At Legal Technology Hub, Nikki Shaver’s “Law Firms Want to Change; They Just Can’t” asks whether law firms are capable of managing the transition to a post-AI legal market.

Law schools and law firms are the legal profession’s most important institutions. But they were built for a world in which legal intelligence was scarce, and that world is rapidly passing away.

Also related/see:

Affordable & Accessible: The Democratization of Legal Tech (Tyler Foreman VP of AI – Rocket Lawyer) — from tlpodcast.com with Tyler Foreman & Chad Main
Tyler Foreman, the Vice President of AI at Rocket Lawyer, joins the show to discuss the intersection of artificial intelligence and the legal industry.

The conversation focuses on how modern generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) act as a legal operating system to simplify contract reviews, document drafting, and client intake, while maintaining essential connections to human attorneys.

Important insights from this PwC global jobs report — from linkedin.com by Ross Dawson & PwC

The Tyranny of College Admissions: Why It’s So Challenging to Have Real Change in K-12 Education — from gettingsmart.com by Jon Alfuth

Key Points

College admissions policy shapes K-12 practice. If colleges continue to privilege course sequences, seat time, and grades, high schools will remain constrained in how far they can move toward competency-based learning.
States and institutions already offer models for change. Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, and pilots like CUNY and Michigan Ross show that admissions can incorporate portfolios, demonstrations of learning, and durable skills.

If we could instead orient K-12 education around skill development and application rather than Carnegie Units and grades, we could create a new paradigm for where, when and how students demonstrate college and career readiness. Competency-based education moves schools and systems towards this desirable future that balances knowledge with skills.

Despite tremendous evidence of its potential, efforts to accelerate this shift have been stymied by the tyranny of college admissions requirements and processes. Parents, teachers, administrators and policymakers end up in a quandary. Anyone attempting to shift away from this traditional course sequence is criticized as trying to lock kids out of higher education and we snap back to the way things have always been done.

And here’s the link to Robert’s posting on LinkedIn.

OPINION: If higher education wants to rebuild public trust, start with making college affordable — from hechingerreport.org by John B. King, Jr.
Addressing high tuition, food insecurity and child care needs are important first steps

Higher education is under siege, with many students and parents balking at high costs. In a series of op-eds, university leaders lay out their efforts to keep college affordable. This is the first in the series.

For many people across the country, paying for college is the largest investment they will ever make. Increasingly, it’s one that feels out of reach.

Over the past two decades, tuition and fees at private, national universities have jumped by 112 percent; at some “elite” and highly selective schools the annual cost of attendance now approaches $100,000.

If higher education is to rebuild public trust, affordability can’t be an afterthought. It must be at the center of our strategic focus.

Also from The Hechinger Report, see:

What it’s like to enter the job market in the middle of an AI revolution — from hechingerreport.org by Neal Morton
‘It’s not looking good’: The unemployment rate for recent grads is the highest in five years, but AI is not primarily to blame — at least not yet

Addendum on 6/10/25:

The Real Mission of Higher Education Is Hiding in Plain Sight — from insidehighered.com by John Warner
A guest post laying out a path forward for all institutions.

Most colleges and universities are not actually organized around learning. They’re organized around teaching, research productivity, rankings, revenue, and the preservation of institutional prestige. Students sense this, even when they can’t articulate it. The public senses it, too. Academic researchers themselves have been making this argument for decades, but it has rarely felt more urgent than it does right now.

The Yale report says, wisely, that “trust is earned by doing what you say you’re going to do.” Universities say they’re about learning. The way to rebuild trust is to actually mean it and to build institutions that prove it.

The Yale committee is right that trust must be rebuilt through action over messaging. The most fundamental action, and the one most often overlooked, is this: Get learning right.

Addendum:

AI Budgets in Education Show No Sign of Decline — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Key Takeaways

Education AI budgets are holding steady or increasing: Wasabi found that 98% of education organizations expect AI infrastructure budgets to increase or remain steady, with 46% planning increases.
Storage costs are the top AI implementation challenge: Half of education respondents cited data storage issues, including storage and access costs, as the No. 1 challenge for AI projects.
Cloud security and ROI remain pressure points: Only 47% feel confident keeping data unaltered and operational after a cyberattack, 44% lost access to public cloud data after an attack, and 37% of AI projects currently show positive ROI.

Can colleges still deliver in the age of AI? One Ivy League school is investing $30 million to improve career outcomes — from cnbc.com by Jessica Dickler

Key Points

College students are increasingly worried about what an AI-driven jobs apocalypse could mean for their employment prospects.
To that end, many colleges and universities are racing to recalibrate.
Even at nation’s most elite schools, the focus is shifting to career readiness.

Why universities must become flexible lifelong partners, not one-time providers [Sivarajah]

On 05/28/2026, in adjunct faculty, apprenticeships, business, career development, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, credentialing, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, Europe, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, innovation, internships, leadership, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, MBA, new business models, organizational change, pace of change, participation, pathways, professional development, skills, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, technology (general), UK, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Why universities must become flexible lifelong partners, not one-time providers — from timeshighereducation.com by Sankar Sivarajah
As careers become increasingly non-linear and shaped by rapid change, universities must evolve beyond traditional degree provision, says Sankar Sivarajah. Here, he outlines strategies

From programmes to learning ecosystems
These pressures point towards a broader redefinition of higher education. Rather than viewing education as a one-time experience culminating in a degree, universities increasingly need to see themselves as partners in professional development across an entire career.

This means moving from a model centred on programmes to one focused on learning ecosystems that allow individuals to enter, leave and re-engage with higher education as their needs evolve.

Business schools may be particularly well placed to lead this shift because of their close engagement with employers and their long tradition of educating professionals at different stages of their careers.

But success will depend on more than introducing new modules or certificates. Universities must confront a fundamental question. Are the systems, structures and cultures that define higher education capable of supporting genuinely flexible learning?

The sector has already embraced the language of lifelong learning – the next step is ensuring that universities themselves are built to deliver it.

From DSC:
Long-time readers of this blog have seen this graphic of mine posted over the last 12+ years:
.

.

Also relevant/see:

What if the undergraduate journey were a four-year internship? — from timeshighereducation.com by Michelle Seref
Treating work placements and co-curricular programmes as optional or supplementary misses deeper questions about whether traditional degrees prepare students for careers. Michelle Seref explains

Attending workshops or polishing a résumé in their final semester does not make students career-ready. They need to practise how to work – how to collaborate, navigate ambiguity, manage projects and apply knowledge in context – throughout their academic experience. The reality is that career readiness is not a co-curricular programme; it is an essential part of an integrated curriculum.

To be clear, employers do not expect classrooms to become training centres. What they are asking for – implicitly and explicitly – is graduates who can function in complex environments from day one. That means graduates who can work in teams, communicate professionally with stakeholders, adapt when plans change, apply theory to real constraints and learn continuously on the job.

These capabilities do not develop through passive learning. But experiential learning is often misunderstood as a single, high-impact activity: an internship, a capstone project or study abroad. In reality, its power comes from repetition and progression. One experience introduces exposure. A sequence of experiences builds competence.

We are proposing a paradigm shift: repositioning the undergraduate journey as a four-year professional internship rather than a continuation of the K-12 classroom environment.

.
From DSC:
The problem with this innovative idea is that faculty often are not out in the “real world.” The best chance higher ed has to deliver on this idea is via the adjunct faculty members out there. Often, they are the ones practicing what they are teaching. They are constantly pulse-checking — and actively involved with — their industries and have more up-to-date, practical knowledge.

But this is a problem for traditional institutions of higher education, which have treated their adjunct faculty members poorly through the years. Adjunct faculty members hardly make minimum wage, have no benefits, no retirement plans, etc. — plus they have little to no say in faculty senates.

Organizational change would be a requirement.

Words are easy to say…and much harder for American businesses to back up. Alternative title: Cut the B.S. and actually care about your customers…like you say you do. [Christian]

On 05/28/2026, in 21st century, business, changing business models, communications, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, telecommunications, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Words are easy to say. Examples:

We are the leading ____ in the Midwest/Southwest/Northwest/etc. (says who? Prove it.)
Our patients’ care is important to us (no, it’s not…you only care if your customers’ accounts are paid in full. If patients’ care were actually important, you would fix what’s broken.)
Your call is important to us (no, it’s actually not. If it were actually important to you, you would have more customer service reps working so that the wait times were either non-existent or much shorter. The truth is that you would rather cut costs/headcount and have your customers wait. Be truthful about it. Stop the B.S.)

A vast number of American corporations don’t actually care about their customers — their concern focuses solely on obtaining their customers’ money.
One of the ways this plays out is that they hide behind the labyrinths that are designed into the call pathways in their Voice Response Units (VRUs). VRUs have been abused. Corporations hide behind them. It’s hard to actually reach a person or hold a person accountable for something.

And now, with executives getting rid of entry-level jobs in customer service, they seek to cut costs further as they implement AI-based systems…which rarely give us what we’re looking for.

But even in written communications, times seem to be changing…and not for the better. I had a customer service rep write me a letter recently (regarding an incident with our daughter’s experience at a blood lab). But in the letter, she didn’t even provide her last name or a direct phone # in her correspondence. This would NEVER have happened in business letters back in the day — her last name would have been present, for sure — and likely a direct phone #. This isn’t her fault. It’s her leadership’s fault. BTW, the issue was passed along to the lab’s leadership…and she closed her ticket out. But there was no mention of an actual fix or resolution. Nice hand washing job, don’t you think?

Another case in point. This time, involving Apple. (BTW, I’ve been a long-time Apple fan…until the last several years. They have lost some of their focus on customer service.) I wanted to ask a question about a purchase that showed up on our Visa bill from apple.com/bill. Do you think I could find an 800# to talk with someone at Apple? Nope. You can try to find things via their online-based support systems, but often their documentation doesn’t match up with one’s devices. I couldn’t even use their chat feature — their systems told me that their chat feature wasn’t available (and it was 11:30am EST).

I’m sure if you thought about it, you could come up with your own recent examples of poor customer service experiences — or examples of companies that you did business with who didn’t deliver what they said they would deliver.

The issue runs deeper than we think. It actually has to do with whether people actually care about each other or not. And here in America, actually caring about others seems to be in short supply.

Learning Ecosystems

The 2031 Crisis in Higher Education: a stark scenario [Bryan Alexander]

“Nikii Shaver on legal AI strategy, agentic governance, and trusted judgement” + an item on access to justice + an item from Zach Abramowitz

Words are easy to say…and much harder for American businesses to back up. Alternative title: Cut the B.S. and actually care about your customers…like you say you do. [Christian]

Categories

Tags