T.D. Jakes stresses that the world as we know it will no longer be the same due to AI.
The bishop was the 2025 commencement speaker at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, GA. Among the points addressed in his speech, which lasted over 30 minutes, was the importance of understanding the reality of artificial intelligence (AI) and its permanent impact on the workforce. He emphasized that although it is a “traditional graduation,” the times were changing.
“I am honored also to understand what a critical time it is that we are celebrating a traditional graduation in an untraditional time,” T.D. Jakes told the audience, according to Fox 5 Atlanta. “Make no mistake about it that as you go forward from Morris Brown, you go forward to face a world that is different than any age or era or period that we have ever seen in the history of this country. It has not been since Henry Ford discovered the automobile or the Wright brothers the airplane that we have seen the impact of what artificial intelligence is going to do to our world.”
He continued, “This will not be your grandmother’s world. You will not work your grandmother’s job, and you will not have your grandmother’s dream. It is totally impossible to prepare you for what’s next because none of us are sure what’s next…The only thing that we are sure of is who will go with us into whatever we have to face next. And if God be for us… who can be against us.”
At the conclusion of the speech, Jakes announced he would be sowing a $100,000 seed through the T.D. Jakes Foundation, with funds geared towards equipping the college and its students in “workforce readiness, educational access and institutional resilience,” according to Rough Draft Atlanta. The investment will support “more than 150 workforce certification exams,” and will “equip students with credentials in high-demand fields like hospitality and business.”
Per his speech, the gesture is a “direct investment in a generation poised to shape the future in the face of adversity.”
