AI and oracy skills: The most valuable graduate skill in the AI age

94% of students used AI in assessed work by 2026; learn why AI weakens core knowledge vital for genuine oracy.

In this episode:

• A 2026 Higher Education Policy Institute survey revealed 94% of students used AI in assessed work, necessitating a renewed focus on oral communication education.
• Bruce Hood argues that AI, while not directly harming oracy, weakens the core knowledge and synthesis abilities vital for genuine oral communication, impacting graduate employability skills.
• Employers now prioritize verbal communication and soft skills over grades, highlighting the increasing importance of assessing oral communication for future job markets.
• The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, pioneered by the University of Queensland, demonstrates a successful model for developing advanced oral communication skills in students.
• Educators should shift from solely written assignments to incorporate more oral assessments to build essential AI and oracy skills from primary school through higher education.

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Cold open & welcome
• 00:25 — 94% of students using AI in assessed work
• 00:55 — Employer demand for oral communication education
• 01:30 — How AI weakens core knowledge for AI and oracy skills
• 02:25 — The strategic choice for integrating oral communication education
• 03:05 — Designing learning tasks for oral communication beyond written reports
• 03:50 — Assessing oral communication: Product, Process, and Performance
• 04:30 — Embedding oracy skills through professional development and AI Mavericks
• 05:15 — The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) as a model for developing graduate employability skills
• 05:55 — Oracy as the human differentiator in an AI-augmented world

How does AI impact student skills for oral communication education?
AI can weaken the foundational knowledge and deep synthesis required for effective oral communication by performing too much of the cognitive heavy lifting that students previously did themselves.

What graduate employability skills are most valued by employers in the AI age?
Employers increasingly value verbal communication, critical thinking, authenticity, and the ability to establish credibility and respond on the fly, as reported by the National Association of Colleges and Employers and CBI Economics.

How can educators improve assessing oral communication in the AI era?
Educators can shift focus to oral assessments like debates, presentations, conversational exams, and performance-based tasks that require students to apply knowledge dynamically and respond to spontaneous questions.

Featuring: Dan Fitzpatrick, Bruce Hood, Higher Education Policy Institute, National Association of Colleges and Employers, CBI Economics, University of Queensland, Three Minute Thesis, My-Thesis, University of Bristol.

Follow AI in Education with Dan Fitzpatrick for more on AI in education.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If this episode makes you think, please let us know in the comments and support us by subscribing and leaving a review. Thank you. Today we are exploring why ORISE is emerging as arguably the most valuable graduate skill in the AI Age. The article we're diving into titled In the AI Age, Orasy Can Be the Most Valuable Graduate Skill If We Instill It was published in Times Higher Education by Bruce Hood, Chair of Developmental Psychology and Society at the University of Bristol back in June 2026. And what really jumps out immediately is this finding. A 2026 survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute found that a staggering 94% of students were using AI in their assessed work. Now that number, 94%, it just screams at you, doesn't it? It highlights this massive shift that's already underway in higher education. For decades, universities have really focused on perfecting how they teach students to write. Essays, dissertations, reports. These have been the bedrock, the dominant way we assess what students know. But Bruce Hood makes a compelling case that with almost all students now using AI to craft these polished documents, the ability to communicate non-written becomes incredibly important for what he calls graduate employability skills. What the article makes clear is that employers aren't just looking for someone who can churn out a well-structured document, because frankly, AI can do that for anyone with a few prompts. They want to know if someone genuinely understands their subject. Can they explain it directly? Can they answer questions on the fly? Can they establish credibility? Think on their feet? These are the human skills that machines just can't replicate. The National Association of Colleges and Employers, in their 2024 report in the US, found that verbal communication was already one of the most sought after graduate attributes among recruiters. And here in the UK, CBI Economics reported in the same year that employers actually value soft skills and practical experience more than grades or a university's reputation when they're making higher-end decisions. Now here's where it gets interesting because the piece acknowledges that AI doesn't directly undermine ORIC skills. It's not like the machine is actively making you a worse speaker. But what it does do, Bruce Hood argues, is weaken the very knowledge and understanding that good communication depends on. If students no longer have to deeply immerse themselves in a topic, wrestle with the ideas, and synthesize it all to produce a well-structured essay, then their foundation for discussing that topic orally is weakened. This really resonates with what I often say about how we need to outsource the doing, not the thinking. If AI is doing too much of the foundational cognitive heavy lifting, students aren't building the mental muscle they need for genuine insight, which is crucial for effective oral communication. Good communication isn't just about reciting facts, it's about understanding your audience, responding to feedback, interpreting social cues, demonstrating authenticity, and building trust. These are profoundly human capabilities. They emerge from practice, from that productive struggle, not from passive learning. But the reality, according to the article, is that outside of a few elite universities, oral communication at the undergraduate level remains relatively rare. It's not treated with the same seriousness as written assessment, and students often get little structured training in public speaking or audience engagement. Sometimes speaking in public is even seen as something to be avoided because it can be so anxiety inducing. So universities and I would argue schools at every level that face a strategic choice. Do we continue to treat oral communication as a supplementary skill? Something that just happens incidentally? Or do we recognize it as a core capability deserving explicit attention in our curricula? The first thing teachers should know is that this isn't just a higher education problem. If students arrive at university struggling with oral communication, it's because we haven't given them enough practice and intentional teaching in primary and secondary school. We need to be proactive. Think about your year eight geography lesson for a moment. Instead of just a written report on climate change, imagine a debate or a presentation where students have to convince a mock town council about their proposed solutions. That's design and learning that demands depth, care, and imagination, rather than something that can be faked. It's about building those fundamental oral communication education skills from an early age. The second thing for educators to consider is assessment. Bruce Hood suggests that oral assessments, even conversational exams, could be a better alternative to written assessment in the AI era. And this connects directly to my three Ps framework for assessment product, process and performance. While AI can certainly help with the product achieves a written speech outline, for example, the performance by trollings, the live delivery, the answering of spontaneous questions, the negotiation of ideas, that's uniquely human. We can design tasks that truly demand cognitive stretch, asking students to apply their knowledge in a dynamic, spoken context. Can AI complete this without the students' unique context, perspective or judgment? Probably not the performance part. We need to teach students not to outsmart machines, but to outthink them. If this discussion is sparking ideas for you, why not follow this podcast? We're always exploring how AI can enhance our educational practices, and you won't want to miss what's coming next. Here's what this means for school leaders. You might be wondering how do we embed this? It comes down to a shift in culture and intentional professional development. It's about empowering teachers as change agents. A department head could plan CPD around practical strategies for teaching and assessing oracy across departments. This isn't just about adding a public speaking unit. It's about weaving oral communication into every subject, making it an everyday expectation. We can identify AI mavericks in different departments, give them the time and space to pilot new oral assessment methods, and let their enthusiasm spread. This focus on collaborative reasoning and verbal expression also has a profound equity impact, especially for the middle 80% of students who might not be getting targeted intervention but still need support to develop these crucial graduate employability skills. Accessibility, after all, isn't an afterthought but a foundation. The good news is that solutions exist even if they're often found at the postgraduate level. The article highlights the three-minute thesis or three MT competition, which started at the University of Queensland and is now adopted by over 1,000 institutions worldwide. PhD students have to explain years of complex research in just three minutes to a non-specialist audience. It's incredibly challenging, but it proves that communicating complex ideas clearly is learnable and hugely valuable. Bruce Hood himself launched My Thesis, a platform to make these research presentations searchable, not just to showcase research, but to recognize communication itself as an academic achievement. It's about giving credit where credit is due for those hard won oral communication skills. In an AI augmented world where machines can compute and process information with astounding speed, the uniquely human capacities for wonder, for care, for judgment, for relationship, and for imagination become our most precious assets. And Orasy, the ability to articulate, persuade, question, and connect, is the outward expression of those assets. It's the human differentiator. That's all for today. Thanks for listening.