Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting Lisa Gevelber, founder of Grow with Google, at the University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation. Lisa and I spent the day in conversation with students, faculty, staff and career development leaders, exploring what it means to prepare learners for the future of work in the age of AI and what it means to do so together.
James DeVaney
Across three roundtables, we heard from career development professionals advising students on how to use AI in their job searches, faculty innovators experimenting with AI in their classrooms and researchers examining how the nature of work itself is changing. Later in the day, at our annual Online Learning Showcase, Lisa spoke about the Grow with Google–University of Michigan partnership, which now provides all U-M students, faculty and staff with access to Google Career Certificates and AI training through Michigan Online. During our fireside chat, we reflected on what makes this collaboration different and why it matters so much now.
Too often, relationships between universities and companies are framed as transactions. One side licenses technology or buys a service; the other delivers it. These vendor relationships can be useful but limited: They meet immediate needs without changing how either organization thinks or grows. A true partnership is something else entirely—it’s a shared commitment to learning, discovery and value creation that benefits both sides and, most importantly, the learners we serve.
Why Partnership Matters More Than Ever
Higher education has always depended on partnership. But in this moment of technological and societal transformation, the kind of partnership we need is changing.
When universities engage with industry merely as vendors or clients, the relationship often becomes transactional. Both parties focus on contracts, deliverables and compliance. These arrangements rarely transform either organization. Over time, they tend to narrow rather than expand opportunity as they overindex on short-term deliverables instead of long-term learning. When collaboration becomes transactional, curiosity fades, innovation slows and the relationship stops creating new value for either side.
Partnerships, on the other hand, are built on mutual understanding. There is a belief that both sides bring essential expertise and that both will evolve as a result of the collaboration. That’s the foundation of our work with Grow with Google. We’re not just adopting tools or offering courses; we’re co-creating opportunities for Michigan students to gain skills that complement their academic experience and to do so within a framework that aligns with our mission of life-changing education.
This distinction between vendor and partner is strategic, not semantic. Partnerships require an ongoing conversation about value: what value looks like, how it is created and how it is shared. At their best, they also invite accountability, transparency and innovation in how that value evolves over time and how challenges are addressed when they inevitably surface.
Partnership in Practice: Learning From Grow With Google
In her remarks, Lisa shared that more than 800 educational institutions have integrated Google Career Certificates and AI training into their curricula. What makes these partnerships thrive isn’t scale, it’s alignment. As she put it, “This is a shared mission. By combining our industry expertise with your academic leadership, we can build a future where every student is equipped to thrive in the AI era.”
At Michigan, that alignment takes many forms. Faculty members like Besa Xhabija, a biochemistry professor at University of Michigan–Dearborn, are weaving Google’s data analytics certificate directly into premed courses—helping students strengthen critical thinking while gaining experience with the tools shaping modern research and practice. It’s one example among many of how academic rigor and industry relevance can coexist and how, together, they can expand access to opportunity. These innovative approaches are essential to institutions like Michigan as we redefine what it means to prepare students for meaningful work and to empower alumni to keep learning and adapting throughout their careers.
Reimagining the Future of Learning and Work
Across our conversations, one theme came through clearly: AI is forcing every institution to reimagine its role in lifelong learning.
Faculty shared powerful examples of how they’re already using AI to enrich learning, and they asked how else they might integrate it in ways that advance pedagogy rather than automate it. Career center leaders discussed helping students not only use AI tools but also understand their ethical and social implications. And across every group, we heard a shared belief that universities must prepare learners for both the technological and the human dimensions of the future of work.
Partnerships like this one make that vision possible. They connect university expertise in critical thinking, creativity and empathy with industry’s insights into evolving skills and market needs. They make it easier to move from learning about the future to building it.
In our recent Inside Higher Ed op-ed, Lisa and I argued that degrees and skills shouldn’t be seen as competing priorities but as complementary pathways. They are two halves of the same whole. The partnership between Grow with Google and the University of Michigan is a live example of that philosophy in action: academic innovation meeting industry relevance, each strengthening the other.
Growing Together
As AI reshapes how we learn, work and live, universities and industries face a shared challenge: ensuring that technological progress expands, rather than narrows, opportunity. That won’t happen through transactional relationships. We’ve experienced what happens when partnerships drift in that direction. The energy that once fueled co-creation gives way to contract management and the sense of shared purpose dissolves.
Expanding opportunity in the AI era requires partnerships grounded in trust, shared purpose and a commitment to mutual growth.
At Michigan, we’re proud to collaborate with partners like Google, not because of their brand or scale, but because they share our belief that education should be both rigorous and relevant, human-centered and future-focused. Like all great partnerships, it represents a commitment to succeeding together and that, together, we will help every learner find their place in a changing world.
