Stanford graduates stage walkout during Google CEO’s commencement address – National

A large cohort of Stanford University students walked out of their graduation ceremony on Monday during Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s keynote address.

The protest was organized by the group Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, according to a statement on its Instagram page, which included a video of some members of the graduating class leaving the ceremony and holding up Palestinian flags and a sign that read “ICE spies with Google AI.”

“Shout out to all the graduates who walked out today. To all the graduates who chose conscience rather than comfort, we thank you,” the statement reads.

The group wrote that it walked out in protest of Google’s hand in the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, saying it would not be lured by “talk of the dollar” and condemning what it says are “crimes of Google in collaborating with Israel, ICE and companies like Palantir.”

Palantir is an American software company specializing in data integration and AI analytics.

According to BBC reports, Pichai largely sidestepped the subject of AI during his speech and appeared to make light of the protests.

“People thought it would be really difficult for me, it is the last two letters of my last name, after all,” he said, according to the British news agency.

Pichai is a graduate of Stanford’s engineering school.

The number of students who walked out is unclear, but according to the protest group’s statement, it was “hundreds.”

Student-led resistance against tech leaders is becoming increasingly common. In May, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed in a stadium of 100,000 graduates during his address at the University of Arizona on the rise of AI, The Associated Press reported.

“It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have,” Schmidt said, as booing rang out.

“I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” Schmidt responded as the jeering swelled.

“There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating … and I understand that fear.”

Olivia Malone, a 22-year-old University of Arizona graduate bound for law school, told the AP earlier this year that Schmidt’s speech was “incredibly disrespectful” and that students’ objections to it stem from a double standard set by educational institutions.

“We as students are discouraged from using it and penalized for using it. And then to have our speaker be the champion of AI is just like, OK? Why?” she asked.

Malone’s frustration is echoed in 2025 polling data from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, which found that about 70 per cent of college students see AI as a threat to their job prospects.

Another speaker, real estate executive Gloria Caulfield, also faced boos when she highlighted the rise of artificial intelligence during a keynote at the University of Central Florida in May.

“The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution,” Caulfield said, as boos erupted, to her surprise. She turned around to ask those behind her, “What happened?”

“OK, I struck a chord. May I finish?” said Caulfield, who is vice-president of strategic alliances at the Tavistock Development Company in Orlando.

“Only a few years ago, AI was not a factor in our lives,” she said, prompting cheers. “And now, AI capabilities are in the palm of our hand,” she said to more heckling.

Music executive Scott Borchetta faced similar hostility while speaking to the graduating class of Middle Tennessee State University about how AI is reshaping the music industry.

“AI is rewriting production as we sit here,” Borchetta, the CEO of Big Machine Records, said as students booed. “I know it. Deal with it.… Do something about it. It’s a tool. Make it work for you.”

— with files from The Associated Press

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