Entry-level jobs are vanishing as artificial intelligence automates tasks that once trained new graduates, leaving young workers competing for positions requiring experience they never had the chance to gain. CSU Pueblo’s response? Give students the AI skills to leapfrog that gap entirely.
The university launched PackGPT, a secure campus-wide AI platform, at its inaugural AI Symposium in the Occhiato Student Center’s ballroom. Faculty, staff, students, and community members gathered for the day-long event that addressed how the institution plans to prepare students for a workforce being reshaped faster than many expected.
Interim President Rico Munn pointed out that AI tools like ChatGPT are barely three years old. Yet they’re fundamentally changing the job market in ways that create new challenges for recent graduates.
One of the most striking points came early in the program. Munn, fresh from a conference in San Jose, described what employers are calling an “experience gap.” Entry-level positions that once provided foundational work experience are disappearing as AI takes over those tasks. New graduates find themselves competing for jobs that require three to five years of experience they never had the chance to gain.
“It’s incumbent upon us as educators to give our students the experience and the skills actively in our classrooms, actively in our workplaces,” the interim president told attendees. The solution, he argued, isn’t to resist the technology but to ensure students graduate with advanced AI skills that let them “teach up” in their workplaces.
Microsoft’s Beth Dann reinforced this perspective, drawing an unexpected parallel to the film Hidden Figures. In the movie, NASA employees faced potential obsolescence when computers arrived. Those who learned to program and operate the new machines didn’t just survive. They became essential. “Knowing how to use it, guide it, question it, apply it is going to set us apart,” Dann said.
The symposium wasn’t just theoretical. University leaders announced the launch of PackGPT, a secure AI platform built specifically for the CSU Pueblo campus. Unlike generic public tools, this system keeps student and institutional data private, addressing concerns about security that Dann described as foundational to any educational AI adoption.
The platform is a practical response to workforce demands that cross every industry. Dann emphasized that AI literacy matters far beyond technology jobs. Medical students will need it for research and patient care. Social workers will use it to identify family resources. Agriculture programs are already exploring applications in waste reduction and supply chain optimization.
Munn highlighted the university’s strategic partnership with Microsoft, noting how the collaboration has opened doors across the CSU system over the past two years. The relationship appears designed to position CSU Pueblo as more than an adopter of AI technology. As Dann put it, “Let’s not just adopt AI, let’s lead with it.”
For a campus where 40% of students are first generation and many juggle work and family responsibilities, the around-the-clock accessibility of AI tutoring tools offers practical support. It’s the kind of resource that matters at 2 a.m. when a student can’t reach their professor but needs help understanding an assignment.
The symposium signals CSU Pueblo’s recognition that fair access to next-generation workforce tools is seen as an economic opportunity strategy. When AI is expected to touch nearly every aspect of the working world, preparing students to use these tools confidently becomes part of the university’s core mission.
