I’m saying this a someone that has worked for multiple institutions, raised hundreds of conduct cases and has more on the horizon.

The article says proven cases. Which means that the academic conduct case was not just raised but upheld. AI detection may have been used (there is a distinct lack of concencus between institutions on that) but would not be the only piece of evidence. Much like the use of Turnitin for plagiarism detection, it is an indication for further investigation but a case would not be raised based solely on a high tii score.

There are variations in process between institutions and they are changing their processes year on year in direct response to AI cheating. But being upheld would mean that there was direct evidence (prompt left in text), they admitted it in (I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to, yes but I only, etc) and/or there was a viva and based on discussion with the student it was clear that they did not know the material.

It is worth mentioning that in a viva it is normally abundantly clear if a given student did/didn’t write the material. When it is not clear, then (based on the institutions I have experience with) universities are very cautious and will give the students the benefit of the doubt (hence tip of iceberg).

But they can’t do grad school work, they lack undergraduate level skills because they skipped it all.

Actually caught. That’s why it’s tip of the iceberg, all the cases that were not caught.