AI companies like OpenAI are insinuating themselves into the pathway from education to work. Soon they may claim it entirely, a disastrous result for students.

We know that students are using AI at school and at university. In conversations with those I teach, I’m struck by the trust many place in it. They turn to ChatGPT and similar tools for personal problems as well as study help. Some even doubt their abilities without AI.

Institutions are working hard to adapt. But we need to urgently look up from the use of AI to pay attention to big AI companies’ attempts to take over the educational pipeline, else we lose sight of the people that matter, our students.

The industry has spent the past few years making our young people afraid of unemployment. Now it’s claiming to have a solution: more AI.

On a website introducing its new certification programs, OpenAI gives a peek into the bigger picture. The company says it wants to “connect learning, certification and real economic opportunity in one clear journey, laying the foundation for our upcoming OpenAI Jobs Platform”. That means offering education, credentials and access to work – owning the entire pipeline, infusing AI at every step.

The company is positioning itself to directly compete with universities. I don’t mean that we’ll soon see shiny new ChatGPT campuses. These companies don’t need to build a university out of bricks and mortar to take over key parts of higher education. They already own the tools where learning and work are increasingly happening – next, they can compete with universities by brokering access to employment.

As big AI companies search for a business model beyond subscriptions, universities need to be alert to this threat and urgently protect their position. Otherwise, the possibility of an independent path for students may be lost.

Big AI is slowly commandeering the pathway

Even though many young people are ambivalent towards AI, it’s easy to see why they’d trust a service that’s explained accounting calmly and patiently for the 20th time and counselled them through a breakup.

Now OpenAI is extending its close relationship with students even further, hiring students as campus ambassadors.

The recruitment ad for joining what the company calls the Student Collective promises prospective campus leads “robust training in our tools, funding, swag and access to a community of remarkable peers”.

Such a program gives OpenAI even greater access to students. This is a familiar brand strategy. Getting inside a community is a way to win trust and influence. It also gives you data that can inform your next move.

At the same time, AI companies are getting boots on the ground within employers.

The OpenAI Deployment Company launched this year, with “more than $4bn of initial investment”. It’s sending over 150 “forward deployed engineers”, a military metaphor used to describe engineers embedded in companies, to the “frontlines” of its network of organisations to re-engineer work around OpenAI’s tools.

But a company that is at the centre of shaping work across industries also sees and influences what employers are looking for. That puts OpenAI in a powerful position to broker the relationship between students and employers. It can help shape the skills employers want, while becoming increasingly involved in how students learn those skills and prepare for work.

So, OpenAI will have insight and influence over students and their learning on one hand, and employers’ workflows and needs on the other.

With that, all that is needed for OpenAI to unbundle universities is credentialing. And it’s doing that, too.

In collaboration with companies including Accenture and John Deere, OpenAI is now offering certificates meant to lead to employment opportunities. Currently, the focus is on AI tooling and literacy.

That’s not new – tech providers have always taught people how to use their tools. The difference this time is how the credentials fit into a larger ambition to capture every step of the journey from learning to work.

Look at the language it uses to sell the delivery of the program: “A full learning experience is available directly inside ChatGPT, where learners can practice real tasks, receive feedback in context, and reflect on their work in a single environment. ChatGPT acts as the tutor, the practice space, and the feedback loop.” A single learning environment, and one clear journey.

OpenAI could soon be selling young people a one-stop-shop for learning, credentials and a job, all heavily dependent on its tools.

We shouldn’t hand the pathway to work to big AI

I understand that the picture I’ve painted here may be appealing to some. Students are nervous about their futures, and employers are urgently seeking workers with the ‘right’ skills.

But there is a human, societal, and potentially economic cost to making this particular journey so centralized.

Consider what a 23-year-old recently told the Wall Street Journal when discussing the appeal of “white-collar apprenticeships”: “Companies want to help mold you into the employees they’re looking for.”

That may be so, but if commercial actors own the pathway from education to work, how will the next generation learn who they are and could be outside of the immediate demands of these structures?

And what happens when what employers are looking for changes as technologies evolve and bubbles burst?

Society – and students – need education to be more than a quick-turn-around response to the whims of today’s increasingly fragile market. Universities can and should offer an alternative path to a totalizing “single environment”.

So let’s not compete on big AI’s terms.

Rather than turning to AI to speed up grading or rushing to use bots as a stand-in for teachers, we need to focus on what OpenAI cannot so easily provide: independence, access to expertise in context, productive struggle and social connection.

Memories are made when others – both peers and educators – see your efforts, and recognise who you are and who you are becoming.

Not long ago, Sam Altman and peers had declared the job apocalypse. We should be wary when the same companies that warned young people that their future is uncertain offer them “one clear journey” towards a different version. Education should leave space and time for finding your own way, beyond a mold offered up for profit.

• Ella Hafermalz is an associate professor of work and technology at the Kin Center for Digital Innovation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam