AI in Education News

Podcast episode covers pushback against AI surveillance ed tech

Parents use AI to prep for IEP meetings, teachers weigh disclosure

Some parents now use AI to decode IEP paperwork and draft home goals aligned with school goals, says former pre-K teacher Kimberly Morris. CDT's Elizabeth Laird says AI can democratize access to information on parents' and children's rights.

Austin Community College tests AI digital twin to flag struggling students

Austin Community College's Digital Twin Initiative, backed by an $875,000 Trellis Foundation grant, rolls out this fall to roughly 46,000 active credit students. It merges data across college systems to route students faster to advising, tutoring, financial aid and mental health services.

LessWrong essay examines how students think about AI

A LessWrong post titled "How My Students Think About AI" describes a teacher's observations of student attitudes toward AI, discussed on Hacker News.

Microsoft agrees to AI privacy rules for schools

Microsoft committed to ten principles with the American Federation of Teachers and its NYC affiliate, pledging not to train AI on student or educator data and prohibiting AI companions. The agreement follows one-year bans on student-facing AI in New York City and Los Angeles.

Stanford professor launches Probability for AI course

Chris Piech, a Stanford AI lab professor, built a class called Probability for AI (pai.stanford.edu) starting Oct 9th, with applications due end of September.

Teachers push back on 'baby slop' AI videos in early learning

AI-generated videos aimed at preschoolers, dubbed 'baby slop,' often lack substance and can include inappropriate content. One YouTube channel, Bright Tunes, has nearly 5,500 AI-generated videos in under a year. Educators are responding by teaching media literacy.

Missouri and Google partner on AI and career training

Google partners with Missouri to give 1.1 million students and nearly 100,000 educators free access to Gemini for Education, AI training, and career certificates. The initiative includes Gemini Notebook, Google AI Educator Series, and professional certificates.

OECD: Students Using AI Score Worse on Tests

The OECD's flagship educational report finds students who don't use AI chatbots outperform those who do, offering wide-ranging evidence the tech may hurt learning.

Survey: High school seniors turn to AI for emotional support

A Uwill survey of 1,020 rising seniors found high school seniors are more than twice as likely as college seniors to use AI weekly for emotional issues (26% vs 12%). 21% said they use AI because they have no one else to talk to.

NYC imposes one-year moratorium on generative AI in schools

Mayor Zohran Mamdani's policy bars student-facing generative AI for nearly 600,000 students in 2-K through 8th grade, effective 2026-27. Companion chatbots are banned in all grades, while high schoolers get limited pilots and twice-yearly AI literacy modules.

Google expands AI Educator Series with new modules and Badge-a-thon

Google adds monthly GES modules on the first Wednesday, including Gemini's Guided Learning and Deep Research features, and announces a national Badge-a-thon on September 19 for K-12 educators.

Podcast: Paul LeBlanc on AI reshaping higher ed

Former SNHU President Paul LeBlanc argues AI will shift higher ed from knowledge transfer to human flourishing, preparing students for a 'care economy' of human-centered jobs. He urges universities to lead AI design, saying 'Universities are the only entities in this culture I trust to get this right.'

AWS Trinity: Agentic AI for student transition planning

Trinity is a conversational AI solution built on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore that helps students with disabilities take ownership of postsecondary planning. It was co-authored with University Startups.

Resona turns online courses into live AI sessions

Higher-ed veteran urges planning for workplace AI

An Inside Higher Ed opinion piece by a professor with 50 years in teaching argues educators must prepare students for rapid AI change, citing that frontier models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic now release every one to two months.

StudentSim trains personalized student simulators from sparse data

StudentSim trains personalized student simulators from sparse data to mirror learner responses and adapt to tutor guidance, outperforming existing models across chess, writing, and math.

Teacher reflects on using AI to embrace vulnerability in classroom

Educator Sofia Gonzalez recounts joining GenerationAI in 2025, an AI-driven cohort, to address her problem of practice: using AI to advance writing skills among English learners. She describes initial skepticism and the program's framing of AI as salvation or catastrophe.

Principal and student review OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens

OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens on Aug. 18 for ages 13-17, with features like Study Mode, Homework Reminders, and Study Hours. An Oklahoma principal and a student reviewed it, praising the concept but raising concerns about the burden on parents and teachers.

AI study tools criticized for handing answers instead of sequencing learning

Cambridge opens free AI & ML textbook collection

OpenMAIC: open-source AI classroom builds full course from one topic

Cisco's Patel makes case for AI in classrooms

Cisco President and Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel discussed how AI will benefit education on "Bloomberg The Close."

AI can help bridge middle school reading gap

Only 30% of eighth graders were proficient in reading in 2024, the lowest in 30 years. AI can provide individualized reading instruction at scale to address the 'comprehension wall' students hit in middle school.

MIT committee report urges overhaul of teaching and grading amid AI

MIT's Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training, formed after a January 2026 charge from Chancellor Melissa Nobles and Provost Anantha Chandrakasan, says AI is "upending foundational elements of the MIT educational experience.

Inside Higher Ed column debates what 'AI literacy' should mean

A community college dean's column asks readers to define AI literacy, citing Ohio University's framework of effective practices, ethical considerations, subject knowledge and rhetorical awareness. One reader's metaphor: use AI like a microwave, not as the only thing you cook with.

Student artists explore AI's promise and peril at festival

At the Me, Myself, and AI art show during the America's Youth AI Festival in Boston, four student artists won the 2026 art competition, reflecting on AI's influence today and in 50 years. The festival was hosted by Day of AI, MIT RAISE, and others.

Abeba Birhane: AI diminishes student learning and skills

UC Berkeley launches 2-semester, $84K AI master's program

UC Berkeley's new Master of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning spans two semesters with estimated costs of $84,004, starting next fall. The program includes a Silicon Valley immersion and an AI ethics course.

Google's Gemini Notebook adds Expert Intelligence for books

Google's new Expert Intelligence feature lets users add purchased Google Play Books ebooks directly to Gemini Notebook, enabling grounded Q&A and generation of infographics, audio overviews, and quizzes. Over 100,000 books from publishers like Penguin Random House and O'Reilly Media are supported, with 15 authors creating Featured Notebooks.

Study: ChatGPT plus critical-thinking training boosts student performance

A randomized study of over 1,000 students found that combining ChatGPT with critical-thinking training improved originality and performance on a real-world university assignment. The OpenAI-commissioned research suggests training can mitigate over-reliance on AI.

Study: AI grades essays higher than humans, unreliable

A study in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education found ChatGPT graded 50 undergraduate bioscience essays higher than humans in all but one case, with one AI-human gap of 40 points. AI inflated low-scoring essays and deflated high-scoring ones, showing poor alignment with human marks.

OpenAI report explores how ChatGPT makes learning continuous

OpenAI's new report examines how students and educators use ChatGPT to extend learning beyond the classroom, with support that continues outside school hours.

OpenAI expands ChatGPT for Teachers to 55 U.S. school districts

The expansion brings secure AI tools, training, and support to over 100,000 more educators and staff across 55 U.S. school systems.

Podcast: Wade Foster shares AI productivity tutorials

Episode 856 of My First Million features Sam Parr and Shaan Puri talking with Wade Foster about how he uses AI to save hours of work daily. Includes his prompts and three tutorials.

Teacher warns AI erodes students' critical thinking

A 13-year NYC English and special education teacher describes 11th-graders answering a Kate Chopin irony question with "I use ChatGPT. How am I supposed to know that?" She argues educators should focus on preserving critical thinking rather than only policing plagiarism.

McGraw Hill CEO discusses AI's role in education

CEO Philip Moyer highlighted AI's evolving role in education, noting McGraw Hill serves ~100 million curriculum licenses and 7.5 million students globally.

Google partners with Delaware for free AI and career training

Google is partnering with the State of Delaware to provide free AI and career training, including Google AI courses and Career Certificates, with no college degree or experience required. Over 70% of Career Certificate graduates report a positive career outcome within six months.

Chollet recommends Deep Learning with Python chapters 15-16 for building LLMs from scratch

François Chollet recommends chapters 15-16 of his book Deep Learning with Python for learning to build LLMs from scratch, highlighting chapter 15's explanation of why dot-product attention works. The book is available online.

Cheshire Academy uses traffic-light system for classroom AI rules

The Connecticut private school, about 400 students in grades 9-12, lets instructors choose whether to use AI and trains staff on general prompting techniques rather than mandating specific tools. Teachers use ChatGPT, Perplexity and educator platform MagicSchool; librarian George Aiello says the "vast majority" of instructors use AI in some way.

Harvard's $699 startup bootcamp uses AI avatars for feedback

HBS Foundry, an eight-week, $699 bootcamp, uses HeyGen-created AI avatars to give feedback during practice pitches and board meetings. NYT reporter Sarah Kessler tested it, pitching to an AI copy of Jeff Bussgang, who called his digital version "creepy" but said "My students love it."

Teacher uses Claude to build custom planner

A teacher used Claude to create a personalized digital teacher planner in about an hour, replacing paid planners. The user shared the experience on Reddit, noting the result was intuitive and cost-saving.

Matt Webb used ChatGPT as a tutor to learn quaternions

Matt Webb says ChatGPT taught him to use quaternions — something reading books and asking mathematician friends couldn't do — for Galactic Compass 2's new augmented reality mode. He had the model educate him rather than write the code.

DataCamp CEO discusses open-source vs. frontier AI for AI tutor

AI course generator combines OpenAI, YouTube, Unsplash APIs

Google launches AI study tools, free Gemini for students

Google offers U.S. college students one year of Google AI Pro free ($19.99/mo value) and international students Google AI Plus, plus a new student hub in Gemini with study notebooks, flashcards, and practice quizzes. Search adds interactive visuals and practice quizzes for tests like SAT and ACT.

Researcher argues 'safe, ethical' genAI use in education is oxymoron

Higher ed must optimize for AI search, study finds

Nearly half of U.S. teens first consult AI-generated summaries when exploring college options, per Carnegie's survey of 3,300 students. The piece urges schools to integrate paid ads and answer-engine optimization (AEO) to shape AI-driven first impressions.

AI Career Skills Move Beyond Computer Science

Handshake's Class of What's Next report, based on 12.4 million U.S. candidate profiles, found nearly two-thirds of students with AI experience aren't computer science majors, and over a quarter come from outside computing, engineering and math. Common nontechnical majors: business, economics, biology, communications, psychology and marketing.

OpenAI launches ChatGPT for Teens with safety and study features

OpenAI released ChatGPT for Teens, a version for ages 13-17 with default safety protections, parental controls, and a Study Mode that guides learning instead of giving direct answers. It includes homework reminders that detect cheating attempts and redirect to Study Mode.

OpenAI partners with CodeAI to build AI literacy in students

OpenAI and CodeAI announced a partnership to help students build AI literacy, think critically about AI, and develop skills to use and shape it responsibly. The collaboration focuses on preparing the first AI generation.

fast.ai co-founder returns to AI to focus on education

Rachel Thomas, co-founder of fast.ai, announces her return to AI after a 5-month hiatus, focusing on AI in education. She cites widespread AI misuse, overhyped exec claims, and poor AI education products as concerns.

Open-source NotebookLM alternative for study materials released

Study: o3-mini agentic loop writes exam questions on par with standardized tests

Modi announces AI training for 10 million youth

ChatGPT adds quiz generation, Google Drive support, and more

Teacher asks Reddit for giveaways of Claude AI writing

Post flags overuse of 'genuinely' and paragraphs opening with 'here's the thing' as potential Claude markers, with 77 comments offering more giveaways.

NVIDIA, Indosat and UGM opened Indonesia's first university AI center

The UGM Indosat NVIDIA AI Technology Center (NVAITC) in Yogyakarta is powered by NVIDIA's full-stack AI platform and Indosat's GPU Merdeka sovereign GPU-as-a-service, giving researchers access to accelerated computing, frameworks and pretrained models. Digital minister Meutya Hafid called it a foundation for Indonesia's 'AI sovereignty' and economic growth.

MIT Tech Review asks kids how they feel about AI

MIT Technology Review interviewed children about their views on AI, expecting to hear about cheating or inspiring uses. The article shares their perspectives in their own words.

Students propose first national AI policy for K-12 classrooms

At the America's Youth AI Festival in Boston, student senators drafted the STUDENTS First Act, a first-of-its-kind national K-12 AI policy. Backed by Day of AI, MIT RAISE, AASA and the Kennedy Institute, it centers on transparency, literacy and security and heads to AASA's 10,000 member-districts.