After a career counselor visited one of her classes earlier this year, Lily Hatch found herself asking a chatbot for guidance about college, raising questions of whether or not AI can support career readiness for the next generation of students.

A junior at Wake Forest High School in North Carolina, Hatch had taken an in-class career quiz that recommended she pursue dermatology. She had finished quickly and so approached the counselor to find out how to explore that profession further. The counselor gave a couple of suggestions, before adding that Hatch could also play with a chatbot to explore her college options.

So, that’s what Hatch did.

But instead of returning information on which schools rank highly for dermatology, the chatbot — a general-purpose consumer product, rather than an edtech tool — veered off into offering information about climate, telling Hatch to consider the University of North Carolina in Wilmington because it’s near a beach.

It felt a little like a runaway train, with the bot dragging her down a pre-laid track. “I was looking for advice on what colleges would be ideal for me. And it switches into going more into what things in my life I would be looking for in the future, which was not what I was looking for,” Hatch says, regarding whether or not AI can support career readiness.

Today’s high school students — who spent years of their academic careers surfing disruptions and the challenges of returning to the classroom after the pandemic school closures — are preparing to enter a labor force and broader economic system that can seem confusing and unstable, as technologies like artificial intelligence are reshaping the career ladders that their parents climbed. Some national surveys show that Gen Z students feel more prepared for their futures now than they did in past years, but for those about to graduate, that’s not always the case. Many students describe a general pessimism about the future.

“There’s a lot of fear there,” says Matthew Tyson, CEO of Tapestry Public Charter School in DeKalb County, Georgia. Tyson notes that many of his students aren’t planning for college, or feel discouraged by the fast-changing nature of life around them.

Navigating these major shifts about starting a career requires both educators and young people to think flexibly, according to experts. Students need honest guidance, Tyson says, adding that adults should be transparent about the reality that they don’t have all the answers.

Read the full article about AI and career readiness by Daniel Mollenkamp at EdSurge.