GoKawiilis a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid.
The use of AI-powered tools to announce students as they walk on stage during graduation and commencement ceremonies has grown in popularity over the past few years, but it’s not always succeeding at the one job it’s there for. Many schools have switched to these systems as a way to ensure names are being pronounced correctly, but during a recent livestream of a Glendale Community College commencement ceremony in Phoenix, Arizona, the AI announcer mispronounced some names and skipped others entirely as a result of timing issues as graduates walked across the stage.
The ceremony was paused at least twice in an attempt to fix the issues, while the college’s president, Tiffany Hernandez, apologized and explained to those in attendance that the AI name-reading tool was to blame for the hiccups. During the ceremony she also told the graduates affected by the issues that they would not be able to walk across the stage again, but after backlash, those graduates were eventually given a do-over with an actual human reading their names aloud.
The selling point of these AI tools, including a popular platform called Tassel, is accuracy; they’re an attempt to ensure the payoff for years of hard work goes perfectly for graduates when they finally receive their diploma on stage in front of friends and family. Tassel not only allows students to confirm how their names are pronounced and displayed, it also generates AI-powered previews so corrections can be made before the ceremony.
Tassel’s announcements are AI-generated from a model trained on voice actors so they sound natural and professional, but that approach can still make an important moment feel impersonal and automated. Other tools, such as StageClip’s NameCheck, share correct pronunciations with a human announcer so they can practice them ahead of time.
Glendale Community College did not confirm which AI system was used for this ceremony, but the hybrid approach could be a happy medium that prevents timing and mispronunciation issues while bringing more meaning with a human announcer.
“When spoken by someone who knows the student or has taken the time to learn their name, it reflects respect and belonging. Outsourcing that responsibility can unintentionally send the message that efficiency matters more than identity,” said June Prakash, the president of the teachers’ union in Arlington, Virginia, while addressing the local school board there last month, according to EducationWeek. Arlington’s Washington-Liberty High School canceled plans to use Tassel at a graduation ceremony next month.