Universities are at risk of surrendering their intellectual independence to Big Tech as they rapidly integrate artificial intelligence tools into teaching and research, according to Bruna Damiana Heinsfeld, an assistant professor of learning technologies at the University of Minnesota. In an essay for the Civics of Technology Project, a platform examining technology’s societal impact, Heinsfeld warned that academic institutions are allowing Silicon Valley to redefine what counts as knowledge, truth, and academic value. She highlighted how universities are increasingly entering into multimillion-dollar partnerships with AI companies, embedding corporate-branded tools into classrooms and curricula. These collaborations, she argued, blur the line between education and technology marketing, with the identity of the company becoming inseparable from the learning experience. As academic leaders race to appear "AI-ready," Heinsfeld cautioned that the focus is shifting from critical inquiry to compliance, potentially handing control over the very foundations of education to private tech firms. AI, she stressed, is not just a tool—it is a worldview. It promotes a logic that equates efficiency with virtue, scale with success, and data with truth. When universities adopt these systems without deep scrutiny, they risk normalizing the idea that the values of Big Tech are not just practical but inevitable. This normalization could shape how future generations understand learning, problem-solving, and knowledge itself. A striking example, Heinsfeld noted, is California State University’s $16.9 million contract to deploy ChatGPT Edu across 23 campuses, giving over 460,000 students and 63,000 faculty and staff access to the tool through mid-2026. The university also hosted an AWS-powered "AI camp" over the summer, where students encountered Amazon branding at every turn—on notebooks, swag, and promotional slogans—further entrenching the corporate presence in academic life. The implications go beyond institutional policy. Kimberley Hardcastle, a professor of business and marketing at Northumbria University in the UK, said generative AI is already transforming the way students engage with knowledge. She described how the "epistemic mediators" — the tools that help people understand and interpret the world — have shifted from human reasoning and scholarly sources to algorithmic outputs. To counter this, Hardcastle advocates for a fundamental redesign of academic assessment. She calls for students to be required to demonstrate their reasoning: how they arrived at conclusions, which sources they used beyond AI, and how they verified information through primary evidence. She also recommends building in "epistemic checkpoints" — deliberate moments in coursework where students pause to reflect: Is this tool enhancing my thinking, or replacing it? Am I truly understanding the material, or just memorizing an AI summary? The core danger, both Heinsfeld and Hardcastle agree, is that universities may cede the authority to define truth to corporate algorithms. Heinsfeld warned that if education becomes a space for adopting and applying technology without questioning it, it risks becoming a laboratory for the very systems it should be challenging. Hardcastle added that the long-term threat lies in students who no longer know how to assess truth for themselves. Ultimately, they argue, education must remain a space where students learn not just to use tools, but to critically examine them — to confront the architectures behind the technology, not just accept them.