Bruce Au: "AI Is the New Hot Sauce of Education."

Reading Time: 4 minutes

I chose this phrase, which is not mine, I clarify, to head this kind of post-reflection on my participation in the IFE Conference 2026, and now I will tell you why, among so many options I had, I finally decided on this one. I was surprised that Bruce Au, Secretary General of the Yidan Prize Foundation, during his participation in the IFE Conference, said out loud what many people think, but perhaps do not dare to say, much less in a space dedicated to generative artificial intelligence. It was simply refreshing to hear his analogy out loud: “Artificial intelligence is the new hot sauce of education; we use it to hide the bad taste of poor quality food.”

I jotted this phrase in my notebook and left the room with a smile and a little more hope in humanity. In the next few days, I would also participate as a panelist, and I was tweaking the notes I had prepared for my intervention on the panel “Trends in Educational Innovation in Higher Education: Four Perspectives“. I considered that I should quote Bruce on that panel. I was no longer very nervous, as I had found reflections that resonated with my philosophy and with my way of seeing education (and the world) among the many conferences, panels, and talks I attended during the IFE Conference.

Panel “Trends in Educational Innovation in Higher Education: Four Perspectives“

This year I had the pleasure and honor of sharing experiences with Elisa Baniassad, Academic Director of the Learning Technology Innovation Centre at the University of British Columbia (Canada); Andrea Lagos, Coordinator of Teacher Training at the Laboratory of Research and Innovation in Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (SUMMA, Chile); Carlos Delgado Kloos, Director of the UNESCO Chair: Scalable Digital Education for All (Spain); and with my colleague and Director of the IFE Observatory, Esteban Venegas.

The truth is that the 45 minutes of the panel passed very quickly. We could easily have been there for at least an hour and a half, sharing our concerns and thoughts (as I like to call them) about the trends that are transforming the different geographical and cultural contexts in which we find ourselves.

Despite our different profiles and trajectories, we found more than one shared concern that spans miles, from Canada to Spain, passing through Mexico and Chile.

Trends < Concerns

Although the panel’s title was about trends in educational innovation, the five of us agreed that our approaches were not so much focused on trends as on the problems the educational community is currently facing: those that worry us in our countries and the institutions in which we work. We agreed that the objective of universities should not be to follow trends; on the contrary, in the face of the constant pressure that the University must keep pace with technological advances, “universities should be a little inflexible,” as Paulo Blikstein, Director of the Research Lab of the Institute for the Future of Education at Tecnologico de Monterrey, mentioned in the inaugural conference of the 2026 IFE.

Because by wanting to keep pace with trends, “all universities look the same,” said Elisa Baniasaad. “My fear is that artificial intelligence will become just another tool to make everything look the same, to homogenize universities, instead of helping them to distinguish themselves from each other.” And this is where I want to return to the hot sauce analogy I previously mentioned. Bruce Au made a very good point: Artificial intelligence is becoming the ingredient we put in everything to hide what is behind it.

And what is behind it? Some of you may wonder. As I mentioned on the panel, there’s always an interest behind it, almost always from a company. That is why we must forever question ourselves before introducing any new technology in our classrooms. Baniasaad agreed about the companies, saying, “We should not bow to them. For years, we have bowed to technologies, and we should stop doing so,” adding that we are at a key moment in which we can leverage the fact that generative AI has only arisen for a couple of years. “We don’t want intermediary software (AI) to determine how we teach, how we evaluate, how students ask questions (…) we don’t want any of that,” she said. “The most fascinating thing about AI is that it can be whatever we want it to be (…), but my concern is that we are not discriminating enough in our demands and in our needs.” I agree with Elisa that we still have time to change course, to take the helm with determination to prevent this colonialism of education.

Trends < Needs

Are we simply following trends, or are we really listening to the needs of the faculty and the student community? I fear we are leaning towards the former, under pressure and out of concern that we are “becoming obsolete.” There is a lot of fear in the classrooms. The pressure we are currently experiencing to follow trends in educational institutions has even become a new term: technostress, which is already wreaking havoc on the mental health of adults and young people.

For precisely this reason, it is even more important to remember the University’s mission. In the words of Carlos Delgado Kloos, “nowadays education has become about passing.” If students’ objective is to pass and universities’ is to approve and award degrees, then we are on the wrong track. That is why we must focus on the needs of students, the community, and the teachers, as Andrea Lagos emphasized. In Latin America, “an important structural digital divide persists,” Andrea pointed out, and concrete actions and experiences are needed there.

To close, and because I don’t want to give more spoilers, you can watch the video (I left the link above so you can see it in full, or click here to view it) and make your own reflections. Personally, what worries me the most is that, more and more, the University has ceased to be a safe space to think and has become a degree-and-certification factory, the same Industrial Revolution factory that Carlos showed us in his slides. Do we want to continue this reductionist approach to education?

Translation by Daniel Wetta