Marketing a Liberal Arts Education in an A.I. World

By Peter Toran \ July 6, 2026

For years, higher education was convinced that STEM was eating the liberal arts’ lunch. Parents wanted STEM. Employers wanted STEM. Legislators wanted STEM. Universities and liberal arts colleges responded the way institutions often do when on the defensive: with explanations. It’s all about critical thinking, communication, creativity, and collaboration. Now STEM has been replaced by a new bogeyman: artificial intelligence. And the same arguments have surfaced all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. The more we read and think about A.I., the more we wonder if we’re asking the right questions—or even focusing on the right issues.

We’ve Seen Disruption Before

The Industrial Revolution transformed physical labor, creating machines that could not only do things people once did, but do them faster, cheaper, and at scale. Entire industries disappeared. But… New industries emerged. New skills were required. People adapted. The same thing happened with computers, the internet, and smartphones. History suggests that we’re pretty good at surviving disruption. And in many cases, our kind has been known to thrive through disruption. But A.I. feels different—not because it’s bigger, but because it’s stranger and somehow more threatening. For the first time, the disruption appears to be coming from something we thought was uniquely human: thinking—or something that looks a lot like thinking. That’s what makes people uneasy. And the question isn’t whether A.I. belongs in higher education. The question is: How will higher ed, especially the liberal arts, respond?

What Happens When Answers Are Abundant?

For generations, education has rewarded students for finding answers, but A.I. has dramatically reduced the cost, and more importantly, the intrinsic value, of producing those answers. That’s great news if education is about answers. It’s a problem if education is supposed to be about something more. For centuries, educational systems were built around the acquisition and demonstration of knowledge. But what happens when information tsunamis become instantly accessible, and explanations arrive in milliseconds? And in turn, what becomes valuable when answers are a dime a dozen? Our hunch is that it’s not more answers. It’s judgment. The ability to distinguish a good solution from a bad one. To recognize when the question itself is flawed, to understand consequences, to navigate ambiguity, to decide what should be done—not just what can be done. Those aren’t technical skills. They’re human skills. And as such, the advent of A.I. is not without irony. A.I. is forcing us to be more critical in our emotions, thinking, judgement, and understanding. A.I. is making us be, well, more human.

Where The Traditional Liberal Arts Defense Falls Short

So, we bring out the old hobby horses we’ve been using for decades (and full disclosure, we are proud holders of liberal arts degrees):

• Employers want critical thinking.
• Employers want communication skills.
• Employers want creativity.

All true, but all increasingly unpersuasive. Not because those skills don’t matter, but because everyone says the same thing, so that’s no longer a differentiator. It’s an outdated and tired recruitment brochure. The challenge isn’t proving that liberal arts graduates possess valuable skills. The challenge is explaining why those skills remain uniquely valuable when A.I. claims to possess them too. We’re forced to ask whether higher education was built for a world that no longer exists—one where information was scarce, expertise was difficult to access, and answers carried a premium.

Can A.I. Make the Liberal Arts More Important?

Yes. Not because philosophy majors are somehow immune from automation—they’re not. Neither are engineers, marketers, accountants, or writers. A.I. doesn’t care about academic departments or job descriptions. What it does care about is routine, predictability, and patterns. The more predictable the work, the easier it becomes to automate, which means the value shifts elsewhere: Toward judgment, ethics, imagination, curiosity. Toward asking questions nobody has thought to ask before and understanding history well enough to recognize that every technological revolution arrives with unintended consequences. In other words, toward many of the things a liberal arts education has always claimed to cultivate.

But Here’s the Catch

If universities want to make that case, they can’t pretend A.I. doesn’t exist, or simply bolt an A.I. policy onto a 20th-century curriculum and declare victory. Students are smarter than that. Employers are too. The institutions that will thrive are those that teach students how to use A.I. critically, creatively, and ethically. They’ll create experiences that challenge students to think—not just generate content—using project-based learning, oral exams, and collaborative problem-solving. And the really successful ones will prepare students to use A.I. across all disciplines. Maybe this can help break down traditional university departmental barriers so that we focus less on labels—liberal arts, STEM—and more on helping people flourish in the world. Education has always adapted to technological change. When typewriters transformed the workplace, schools taught typing. When automobiles transformed transportation, schools taught driver’s education. A.I. presents a much larger challenge, but the responsibility is the same: to prepare students for the world they are entering, not the one their professors entered.

So, How Do We Market the Liberal Arts in an A.I. World?

As with all forms of marketing, it must be honest and authentic, or the effort will flop. Sure, you might get a blip in enrollments from fancy jingles and catchy clickbait, but to sustainably market the liberal arts, the liberal arts has to first evolve its pedagogy to align with the inevitable change that A.I. brings to the equation. Then, schools can lean into how A.I. activates imagination and exploration, leading to the type of breakout success that’s only accessible to folks who can connect dots, push and pull on answers, pass judgment, and create. The institutions that succeed won’t be the ones with the cleverest defense of the liberal arts. They’ll be the colleges and universities that show students how technology can elevate human potential while remaining grounded in the things technology can’t provide: judgment, ethics, curiosity, emotion, and imagination. It’s also important to remember that just because A.I. uprooted a great deal of how we’ve done things for centuries, it has not changed the fundamental reason for higher education: the academic and social rigor, personal intellectual growth, and preparation for gainful employment. And so, to market the liberal arts in an A.I. world, start by understanding how the school embraces the technology (as it must) and avoid bait-and-switch at all costs (“sell” a curriculum that they don’t deliver). Then, ask and answer these few yet fundamental questions. Bring your faculty and students into the conversation and make them a part of the process (without using A.I.). The answers you find together will be better for it.

1. How, specifically, do your graduates transform lives after graduation? Be concrete. Collect as much evidence as you can and connect the dots until you see strong themes emerge from the discourse.
2. How will your students’ curiosity and creativity at scale (A.I. powered) be a differentiator when it’s time to apply for a job? Employers can be obscurantist luddites. Lean into how a new wave of ethical, creative, and curious digital natives can accelerate a company’s growth, discover new differentiators, reengineer processes, and much more.
3. Where is the proof? Fortunately, technology cannot change hundreds of millions of years of human evolution and how the brain works. People like stories, and they will remember how one made them feel before they remember facts and figures. Mine the actual alumni, faculty, and student stories that exemplify their expertise and agency in the multiplying effect A.I. Not only will this be the steam to power a killer storytelling content strategy, but it can also be a feedback loop for the folks engineering the curricula.

Alright, this is not quite a marketing strategy. But that’s ok. You wouldn’t want a canned plan unless you want to blend into a backdrop of sameness. Your marketing strategy should be as unique as your institution, your faculty, your campus, and your students. We’d love to help you with that.