Keeping the Human in the Age of AI: Reflections from ALT Conference 2025

Written by Hannah Salisbury, a Learning Designer from the Digital Education Team within the Learning and Teaching Academy.

Earlier this month, Marianna and I headed up to sunny Glasgow for the ALT Conference 2025.

Unsurprisingly, AI was everywhere in the discussions. The thing that struck us most was that the focus wasn’t on technical details or the newest AI capabilities, but instead on how we ‘keep the human’ at the centre of education as AI becomes part of everyday life.

One line from the keynote really stuck with me: “Be a leader, not an algorithm.” Dr. Charles Knight, Director of Pedagogy, Governance & Management at Advance HE, reminded us that while AI is advancing rapidly, leadership in higher education is still fundamentally human. Humans have qualities like judgement, empathy, and context, and these are skills that technology can’t replicate.

Dr Knight discussed how AI is just our latest tool, and humans will always look for tools to support us in our environment: As AI becomes increasingly frictionless, it becomes more woven into the systems we use every day, and our policies haven’t caught up. We tell students ‘don’t use AI too much,’ while giving them Office 365 with AI built into it. Dr Knight talked about this contradiction while saying that policy alone won’t manage technological change. What matters is proficiency: understanding the framework behind AI and making informed, ethical decisions about how we use it. Ai is a tool and the goal isn’t to become less intelligent, it’s to combine emotional intelligence with data literacy. A recent HEPI report echoed these themes, urging universities to embed AI literacy for staff and students. It highlighted the need for ethics and transparency, clear technology strategies, and a rethink of assessment as generative AI challenges traditional exams and essays.

Another key theme of the conference was the notion that we must embrace change in education; ‘retreating to the past is not viable’. Many contributors spoke about how higher education needs to embrace change collectively, and that means starting conversations before others do. Connected to this was one of our favourite takeaways from the conference – the call to create space for experimentation. We need a culture of curiosity, with permission to innovate without fear of failure. Lots of speakers at ALT talked about the need for transparency and how, in leadership particularly, ‘secrecy erodes trust’. Let’s talk to each other and stay curious!

Our Presentation

One of the highlights for us was delivering our presentation on the work we’ve been doing with our Student Experience Partners (formerly known as Student Champions). This initiative has been central to our approach in the Learning & Teaching Academy, ensuring that students are not just consulted but actively involved in shaping the learning environment. We shared examples of collaborative projects, insights from our partners, and the impact these partnerships have had on both staff and students.

The response from delegates was overwhelmingly positive. Many commented on how refreshing it was to see such a structured and meaningful approach to student partnership, and several asked for resources and advice on implementing similar models in their own institutions. It was encouraging to see that the principles we’ve been championing (co-creation, inclusivity, and authentic engagement) resonate so strongly with others. In others’ presentations, too, we saw our sentiments echoed: ‘students want to matter’ (Austen et all, 2021).

In our presentation we talked a lot about how all the work we do with our Student Experience Partners is underpinned with the aim of creating a sense of ‘cynefin’ that we strive to achieve here at Cardiff University. Cynefin roughly translates to a feeling of belonging or connection to a place. We want our student partners to really feel part of the team and so try to have moments of informality with them, whether that be a casual coffee or nice chat in the office. After the first day of the conference, we attended a Gala dinner and Ceilidh (traditional Scottish social event with dancing). The ceilidh was honestly one of the highlights of the event! There’s something about live music and dancing that just brings people together in the best way. It felt so refreshing to connect with people outside the usual conference setting, where conversations can sometimes feel a bit formal.

It was lovely to see how much that carried over into the next day, and Marianna and I reflected that the feeling we were experiencing was just like the one we want our Student Experience Partners to feel. Because we’d already shared those fun, lighthearted moments, it was so much easier to approach people and start chatting during the sessions and between presentations. The ceilidh broke the ice in a way that emails and introductions never could – and AI could never dance a ceilidh!