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For many graduates, the most anticipated moment of commencement is also the most uncertain: hearing their name said out loud in front of thousands of people.
As UF prepares for Spring ceremonies, the university is continuing to expand its use of Tassel, an artificial intelligence-assisted system designed to address a recurring issue at graduation — name pronunciation.
UF first introduced Tassel, formerly known as MarchingOrder, in Spring 2024. By Fall 2024, the platform incorporated an AI component that generates pronunciations for student names, which are then verified or corrected before voice actors produce final recordings. The system now appears in multiple ceremonies as thousands of students prepare to graduate.
UF commencement director Jason Degen said the change was driven in part by the scale of UF’s ceremonies and the limitations of previous methods.
With about 9,000 students participating in Spring commencement, faculty readers often encountered unfamiliar naming conventions across a diverse student body.
“I want our students to feel like they’ve been as best represented as possible,” Degen said.
Only three of the 16 UF colleges are not participating in the Tassel AI program: the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Warrington College of Business and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
Before adopting Tassel, UF used tools such as phonetic spellings and audio platforms to assist with pronunciation. Those systems depended on student participation and still required readers to interpret names in real time.
The Tassel system shifts that process earlier. Students who plan to attend commencement receive a prompt to confirm how their name should be displayed and pronounced. They can listen to AI-generated versions, make corrections or submit their own recordings.
In an email, a Tassel representative described how the system integrates human voice work with AI-generated audio:
“We partnered with our voice professionals, compensating them to use their voices for AI-generated announcements. These aren't basic AI voices like Siri or Alexa — they're broadcast-quality and virtually indistinguishable from manual recordings. Our voice actors are fully supportive of the AI naming announcement process, as it significantly reduces their recording workload during an already demanding period.”
The system also allows students to confirm the name that will be read during the ceremony.
Paola Grijalva, a 22-year-old UF advertising senior, said she initially felt unsure about the system because of past experiences with her name being mispronounced.
“When people try to say my name, it’s always difficult,” she said. “So my thought process was like, ‘If a person can’t say my name right, how is a robot going to say my name right?’”
Grijalva said she expected the system to produce mistakes she had encountered before, such as people adding extra letters or misreading vowel sounds. After testing the system, she said the result was different from what she anticipated — it got it in one try.
Listening to and confirming the pronunciation ahead of time changed how she viewed the process, she said.
“It ensures that there’s a seamless process for graduation,” Grijalva said.
Not all colleges at UF have adopted Tassel. The Warrington College of Business is among those continuing to use existing processes, including traditional name cards.
Sebastian Duque, a 21-year-old UF business administration senior, knows about Tassel but said he had not used it himself, because his college has not adopted it.
He said the option for students to submit their own pronunciations addressed concerns about accuracy and made him more open to the idea of its use in future ceremonies.
“I don’t think it’d be bad at all,” Duque said. “I think it would just make everyone’s lives easier.”
Contact Aaliyah Evertz at aevertz@alligator.org. Follow her on X @aaliyahevertz1.
Aaliyah is a second-year journalism student in her second semester at the Alligator. She is the Avenue's spring 2026 entertainment reporter. In her free time, she enjoys reading and baking.
