10 Things to Know About PhDs in the Age of AI

So What’s the Point of a PhD Anymore?

Once upon a time, pursuing a PhD meant digging so deeply into a question that, at the end of the process, you could stand at the edge of human knowledge and add a single brick to the wall. A sliver of new insight. A fresh frame for understanding.

But what happens when an algorithm can do in seconds what once took you three years?

Summarize the literature? Done.
Generate hypotheses? Sure.
Analyze massive data sets? Child’s play.
Write coherent academic prose? It’s getting there.

And still… still, there is something irreplaceably human about the doctoral journey. Something that lives in the process, not just the product. Something machines haven’t yet figured out how to imitate, and that’s meaning.

If you’re thinking about a PhD in the age of AI, you’re not crazy. You’re asking the right questions. Just make sure you’re not asking 20th-century ones.

Here are ten things worth knowing before you begin.

1. AI Isn’t Here to Replace Researchers, It’s Here to Replace Laziness

A tool that can automate the dullest parts of the academic process is both a gift and a wake-up call. If your PhD relies on routine summaries, simple calculations, or formulaic outputs, your relevance will shrink.

But if you’re doing work that is interpretive, disruptive, or relational: AI becomes your assistant, not your competition.

The machine takes care of the grind. You stay free to think.

2. Original Thought Is Now the Rarest Currency in Academia

In a world where machines can sound brilliant, being truly original is no longer optional is everything.

And originality isn’t about being quirky. It’s about finding connections no one else sees. Synthesizing across disciplines. Challenging frameworks. Taking intellectual risks that algorithms, by definition, cannot take.

If you’re comfortable in ambiguity and fueled by curiosity, you’ll do well.

3. The Literature Review Has Changed Forever

AI can summarize papers better than many grad students. So the job of a doctoral researcher is no longer to say “what’s been said.” It’s to ask:

• What hasn’t been said—and why?
• Whose voices are missing?
• What assumptions are embedded in the data itself?

This is not just reading—it’s reading with perspective. That’s the doctorate.

4. Prompt Engineering Is Now a Research Skill

You may not need to code, but you will need to know how to interact with machines. How to ask better questions. How to shape the output. How to critically assess what the machine gives back.

This is the new literacy of knowledge work.

5. Interdisciplinary Thinking Is No Longer Optional

A historian using AI to analyze wartime propaganda. A physicist working with ethicists on AI safety. A sociologist co-authoring with computer scientists.

These aren’t edge cases. They’re the new normal. The best research now flows between disciplines—and that means your curiosity needs range.

If you’re territorial about your field, this era will be tough.

6. The Academy Is Becoming More Public (Whether It Likes It or Not)

Thanks to AI (and Open Science), academic content is no longer trapped behind paywalls or buried in obscure journals. With the click of a button, anyone can generate a decent summary of your work.

This forces a new kind of rigor: public relevance. What are you researching, and why does it matter to anyone outside your niche?

Make sure your PhD can explain itself to the world.

7. Your Dissertation Is No Longer Your Legacy

Once, a PhD thesis was the pinnacle. Now it’s a milestone; a launching pad if you will.

Today, doctoral students are turning their research into policy briefs, startups, podcasts, exhibitions, educational tools. The most exciting PhDs are fluid: they escape the page and enter the world.

The question isn’t just “What am I writing?”
It’s “What am I building?”

8. AI Is Forcing Academia to Reconsider the Nature of Proof

What does evidence look like when machines can fabricate citations, simulate experiments, or hallucinate sources? The PhD of the future must be grounded not just in knowledge, but in epistemology—how we know what we know.

It’s no longer enough to cite correctly. You have to think about what counts as truth.

9. The Timeline May Shift, But the Inner Journey Won’t

AI may speed up certain tasks. You may finish in four years instead of six. But the identity transformation, that deep, slow reworking of how you think, speak, and see the world, that still takes time.

And that, ultimately, is what a PhD is: a long conversation between you and the world (and your advisor, of course).

10. The PhD Is No Longer the Path to a Job. It’s the Path to a Voice.

In an AI-driven world where degrees are abundant and content is infinite, a PhD isn’t a golden ticket. It’s a refining fire. It sharpens your questions. It deepens your lens. It gives you the tools to ask better things of this world, and of yourself.

"The pace of publication and research is speeding up rapidly. Competition is becoming fiercer. The person that has a good idea can turn it into reality much quicker with AI, so this is both a challenge and an opportunity," says Professor Yaniv Fox, Head of AI Initiatives and Vice Dean of Humanities. "Ideas can turn into companies — the terrain is suitable for venture-minded PhDs. We still don’t know what the job market will look like in a few years, and academia is where most of the innovative and exciting ideas are coming from.

It’s definitely an exciting time to be doing research!"

If that’s what you’re after, welcome aboard.