Most students who are using AI are using it to do less work. That's understandable, and it's also where the value ends.
Kevin Prentiss, Head of Product and Technology at the NSLS, described two fundamentally different modes of AI use in the State of Higher Ed webinar. The first is the shortcut: you have a task, you ask AI to complete it, and you use the output. Less cognitive effort, faster output, lower learning. This mode is common, tempting, and produces graduates who can generate outputs but haven't developed the skills to evaluate them.
The second mode is different: AI as an ambition expander. You have a project that was previously out of reach (too complex, too time-intensive, too dependent on expertise you don't have) and you use AI to make it accessible. You attempt things you never would have attempted otherwise. You learn through engagement with the tool, building judgment about where it's useful and where it isn't. Your capability grows.
The shortcut mode produces faster outputs. The ambition expander mode produces professional capability. Only one of these will matter to your career.
The ambition expander idea is most concrete in specific examples.
A student studying business who has always wanted to analyze a real dataset but doesn't have the data science background uses AI tools to help structure the analysis, interpret the outputs, and identify patterns, then applies their business judgment to determine what the patterns mean. They've done analysis that would have been impossible six months ago. They've also developed a new competency: the ability to work with data, even without formal training, by using AI as the technical layer and their own judgment as the strategic layer.
A student studying education policy who wants to synthesize research from across fifty sources for a capstone project uses AI to help organize and connect the literature, then writes a synthesis that reflects their own analytical contribution. They've addressed a scope of material that would have been practically impossible in the available time. They've also learned to evaluate AI-generated summaries critically, which is itself a skill.
A student studying communication who wants to produce a podcast episode but doesn't have audio production experience uses AI tools to transcribe, edit, and structure the content, then applies their communication skills to refine the final product. They've produced something that demonstrates professional capability. They've also developed familiarity with a production workflow that's increasingly common in their field.
In each case, the AI didn't replace the student's work. It lowered the barrier to attempting something more ambitious, and the attempt produced learning that wouldn't have happened without it.
The shortcut mode feels productive. Work gets done, assignments get submitted, deadlines get met. The problem is what's not happening: the cognitive work that builds skill.
Students who routinely use AI to complete tasks without significant intellectual engagement are doing a version of the old "copying from a textbook" problem, generating outputs that look like work while the underlying learning doesn't happen. The difference is that AI outputs are often more polished than anything a student could produce copying from a textbook, which makes the absence of learning easier to miss.
The consequence appears in interviews, in first-year job performance, and in the trajectory of professional development. Students who used the shortcut mode can't actually do the things they appear to have done. They haven't developed the critical evaluation, judgment, and domain knowledge that genuine engagement with the material would have produced. This becomes visible quickly in professional settings where the output requires the understanding.
The good news is that the distinction is mostly a choice. The same AI tool that enables shortcut use also enables ambition-expander use; the difference is in how the student engages with it, not in the technology itself.
There's a simple diagnostic: after using AI, did you learn something? Did you develop a view you didn't have before? Did you build judgment about where the output was useful and where it wasn't?
If the answer is yes, you're in ambition expander mode. If the answer is no, if you used the output without evaluating it, submitted it without understanding it, or completed the task without engaging with the material, you're in shortcut mode.
The transition from shortcut to ambition expander doesn't require abandoning AI tools. It requires changing how you engage with them: evaluating before accepting any output by asking whether it's accurate, appropriate for the context, and the best available approach, since the evaluation step is where the learning happens; using AI to expand scope rather than reduce effort, asking what you could attempt that you couldn't attempt before rather than what existing tasks you could complete faster; and staying in the project, since AI is most powerful when it's a tool within your project rather than the project itself. You're the one with the goal, the context, the judgment about what matters. AI helps you execute; you determine what to execute.
Prentiss described the aspiration this way in the State of Higher Ed webinar: your ambition can grow to fill the new possibilities. The constraint on what you can attempt is no longer primarily skill or time; it's imagination and judgment. Students who develop those as their primary capabilities, with AI as the execution layer, will find that their professional reach expands continuously.
The distinction between shortcut and ambition-expander AI use has direct career implications.
Employers who evaluate AI fluency are looking for evidence of genuine engagement and judgment, not just the ability to generate outputs. A candidate who can describe using AI to attempt a project they couldn't have completed otherwise, what they produced and what they learned, is demonstrating something far more valuable than a candidate who can only say they used AI to complete assignments more efficiently.
The ambition-expander mode produces work that demonstrates professional capability. It produces stories that hold up in interviews. And it produces the developing judgment about AI capabilities and limitations that employers know will continue compounding.
The shortcut mode produces faster outputs in the short term. By graduation, the difference between the two modes is visible, in what students can actually do, in how they talk about their work, and in how quickly they can learn in new professional environments.
Focus on transparency and intellectual contribution. Ambition-expander use almost always involves substantial intellectual contribution from you; you're the one setting the direction, evaluating the outputs, and making the judgments that determine the final product. Being transparent with faculty about how you're using AI, and ensuring your work reflects genuine engagement, is both ethically correct and demonstrates the thoughtful engagement that serves you professionally.
Practice deliberately: generate an AI output, compare it against your own understanding of the topic, identify what it gets right and wrong, and articulate why the errors occurred. Over time, you develop a calibrated sense of where AI tools are reliable and where they need verification. That calibration is itself a valuable professional skill.
That's actually the strongest argument for using AI in ambition-expander mode. When you're engaging with material that's at the edge of your knowledge, you have to develop real understanding to evaluate whether AI outputs are accurate, which is exactly the learning that the ambition-expander mode produces. The evaluation requirement forces engagement with the material.
In every field, AI can lower the barrier to attempting more ambitious work. Writers can attempt longer, more complex projects. Researchers can synthesize more material. Designers can explore more concepts. Policy analysts can model more scenarios. The specific tools differ by field; the principle, using AI to expand the scope of what you attempt, applies universally.
The shortcut mode is available to everyone. The ambition-expander mode is available to everyone too, but it requires a different relationship with the technology. The students who build that relationship now, developing judgment and growing their professional reach, will find that their capability compounds in ways that shortcut users simply can't. For the full data on AI, career readiness, and what higher education can do to prepare graduates, read the 2026 State of Higher Ed Report.