The Cambrian Explosion of AI Edtech Is Here
A rundown of the rapid growth of AI in the last 6 months, London Edtech Week, bias in AI, new AI education releases, and more!
At Edtech Insiders, we’ve called it a “Cambrian Explosion.”
Vinod Khosla calls it a coming “tsunami”.
Reach Capital has a whole fund designed for early-stage AI edtech companies
P & S Intelligence predicts that “The AI-in-education market is expected to grow from approximately $2 billion in 2022 to more than $25 billion in 2030.” (source).
No matter how you slice it, edtech has gone mad for AI. From the largest incumbents to the smallest start-ups, big bets are being placed throughout the sector on artificial intelligence.
With new AI tools launching weekly, it is near impossible to try to stay on top of the evolving AI ecosystem.
We recently launched The AI Tools in Education Database – a continually updated database of AI tools in education. We already have over 160 tools in the database, tagged and searchable by feature.
This living tool is intended to be a community resource for educators, researchers, students, and other edtech specialists looking to stay up to date.
Check out what we already have, let us know what you think, and be sure to add new tools to this open form.
Our AI in Edtech Takeaways
After chronicling 160+ AI tools (which is surely only a small fraction of the total), we’re seeing a few clear patterns among the tools that have come out so far- here are 10 categories that are jumping out!
Virtual Teaching Assistants: tools designed to save teachers time when lesson planning, creating IEPs, writing curriculum, giving feedback and more (Playlab, Brisk Teaching, Roshi)
Virtual Tutors: student-facing AI bots designed to be personalized tutors (Salley for career coaching, Quizlet’s Q-Chat, Trellis)
AI-Powered Study Tools: tools designed to instantly turn media resources like websites or videos into traditional ‘study materials’ like notes, flashcards or practice quizzes (Wisdolia, Cognii, Studyable)
Educational Content Creation: tools to rapidly create educational content, especially video creation and quizzes, for independent course creators, educational publishers and L&D teams (Prof Jim, Synthesia, Prep.ai)
Educational Search: AI-enhanced search tools that surface information in new and unexpected ways (Perplexity, Heuristi.ca, Transvribe, AskBooks)
Auto-generated Learning Paths: tools that, given a subject or question, will create an instant, personalized ‘course’ (Learn.xyz, Nolej, LearnGPT)
AI-Powered Research: tools that help navigate research papers or journals to find citations and rapid answers (Elicit, Scite, Consensus)
Speak to Characters: ability to speak to AI bots that simulate the personalities of famous people, historical figures or characters (Khanmigo, Duolingo Max’s Roleplay, Character.ai)
Grammar and Writing: tools to support writing and grammar skills (Quillbot, Trinka, Writefull, Smodin)
AI Cheating Detection: tools that can detect AI in student submissions and track cheating (GPTZero, Turnitin, Originality.ai)
Edtech Insiders Live Events
Edtech Insiders recently co-hosted an event for London Edtech Week alongside Cooley and Oppenheimer! We had a great time seeing everyone and discussing the current funding market, the latest on AI in education, regulation and policy in education, and more!
We’ll share future live events in our newsletter, and we also share about upcoming Edtech Insiders events on our LinkedIn so be sure to follow us to hear about all our future events! We’d love to see you there!
Top Edtech Headlines
1. Edtech in Europe: VR and London Edtech Week
London’s Edtech Week with EdtechX is kicking off this week! European Edtech has a ton to offer, and we’re looking forward to seeing what news comes out of this event.
In other European Edtech news, GoStudent, Immerse and Meta just released a joint project called GoVR, which is all about VR-based immersive, social, personalized tutoring. Three strong Edtech brands combining to resurrect the VR buzz- definitely worth watching!
2. Partisan Divides Continue in US Education System
The Pew Research Center released a fascinating set of charts this week showing the significant difference in beliefs about education between the two main political parties in the US, an issue that has been of huge importance to edtech companies that sell to schools and districts.
Some notable perspective differences between Republicans and Democrats include:
K-12 schools are having a positive effect on the way things are going in the country: 72% of Democrats agree, and 37% of Republicans agree.
Holding a favorable opinion of the USDOE: 62% of Democrats do, and 35% of Republicans do.
Teacher’s Unions have positive effects on schools: 60% of Democrats agree, and 22% of Republicans agree.
Federal government has too much influence on schools: 20% of Democrats agree, and 52% of Republicans agree.
For our edtech community, and for content providers especially, the perspectives on what curriculum should and should not be taught in schools are particularly notable:
3. Byju’s Launches New AI Tools
Byju’s, still the largest edtech company in the world by valuation despite a series of increasingly public missteps, recently launched a suite of AI tools including:
BADRI: a predictive model which works like a LLM to personalize learning
MathGPT: a mathematics-trained transformer model trained on problem solving
TeacherGPT: a student-facing tutoring tool that guides students to the answer, similar to Khan Academy’s Khanmigo
Notable in this announcement is that Byju’s is leaning into math, which is both its original specialty in the online-tutoring-only days, and an area in which most LLMs are particularly weak.
4. Google Releases Free AI Courses
Google, which literally invented the transformer technology used in LLMs like Baidu’s and Bing’s, doubled down on AI education by launching a suite of nine free generative AI courses. This is in line with Google’s ongoing strategy to provide free high-value career-aligned education focusing on Google’s suite of tools (in this case, Google’s Vertex AI).
5. AI Is Still Racist and Sexist, Even More So Than Humans
Bloomberg recently published an article on bias in generative AI displaying how image creator Stable Diffusion still associates high and low paying jobs with race and gender stereotypes, among other factors.
It’s no news that AI is biased, but what Bloomberg highlights very well is that AI doesn’t only perpetuate bias, but actually intensifies bias. One example Bloomberg offers is that Stable Diffusion generated only 3% of images featuring women when prompted by the keyword “judge”, when in reality about 34% of US judges are women.
As AI continues to grow in scope and prevalence, it’s important to confront and address these issues of bias now before the scope of biased AI has grown beyond remedy.
Courtesy to Claire Zau in her GSV's AI News & Updates Newsletter for highlighting this important story, which has clear ramifications not only for edtech but for all industries leveraging AI.
6. Edtech Competition Finalists Announced at 2023 Milken-Penn GSE
The Milken-Penn Graduate School of Education has been making moves to become one of the strongest thought leaders in the edtech space, and their pitch competition finalists show a strong commitment to practical tools dedicated to an equitable system. Finalists include:
College Guidance Network: a unique content platform with live programming plus on-demand resources designed to support school counselors, helping students and families navigate high school to post-secondary
EdVisorly, Inc: a nationwide community college to university transfer platform, empowering aspiring community college students to connect with universities to boost enrollment success
Note: We spoke to Manny Smith, CEO of Edvisorly, at the ASU+GSV Summit this year. You can listen to our full conversation with Manny here.
Skizaa Education: helping education leaders make real-time data-driven decisions by collecting and analyzing data from last-mile schools, saving more than 90 days
Story Shares: a mission-driven publisher focused on building a relevant, culturally inclusive, reflective, engaging, and inspirational global library filled with choices that transform striving readers into avid ones
Taleemabad: an all-day learning ecosystem that improves student learning outcomes, upskills teachers through digital training, increases admissions for low-cost private schools, and standardizes classroom experience through structured pedagogy
ThinkHumanTV: a social and emotional learning platform that leverages streaming media on sites such as Netflix and Disney+ to teach young people the science of emotions
Unlocked Labs: empowers and employs justice-impacted individuals to design and build technology that promotes human flourishing and enables decarceration
Finalists will pitch their ideas one last time at Edtech Week 2023 on October 4th in New York City!
This Newsletter Is Sponsored by Magic Edtech
Magic EdTech has helped the world’s top educational publishers and Edtech companies build learning products and platforms that millions of learners and teachers use every day. Chances are that you're probably using a learning product that they’ve helped design or build!
Companies like Pearson, McGraw Hill, Imagine Learning, American Museum of Natural History have used their help to design or build some of their learning products. Now, Magic wants to bring its pedagogical and engineering expertise to make your key learning products accessible, sticky, and well-adopted.
Recent Edtech Insiders Podcast Episodes
We’ve had some amazing guests on the podcast over the last three weeks! Here’s just a few of the recent guests we’ve had:
Al Kingsley is an edtech superstar, with 30 years of experience in the field. He is the author of My Secret Edtech Diary and the co-host of the EdTech Shared podcast. Listen to our interview with Al Kingsley now!
Anada Lakra is the CEO of Boldvoice, a human-meets-AI accent modification app. She’s very much an up-and-coming edtech star, who has built and launched 5 products (1 IPO, 1 exit via acquisition), was recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in education, and holds a BA from Yale and MBA from Harvard. Listen to our interview with Anada Lakra now!
Kim Smith is a veteran education field-builder and the founder of LearnerStudio, an equity-focused education investment studio being incubated inside Cambiar Education. She was also the founder and CEO of the Pahara Institute, co-founder of Bellwether Education Partners, and a founding team member at Teach For America. Listen to our interview with Kim Smith now!
Ryan Craig is the Managing Director of Achieve Ventures, and is one of the most thoughtful and future-thinking voices in edtech and workforce development. His Gap Letter is a must-read, and we’re looking forward to reading his soon to be released book Apprentice Nation. Listen to our interview with Ryan Craig now!
Funding, Mergers, and Acquisitions
For a complete list of recent funding rounds, mergers, and acquisitions, check out ETCH by Matt Tower for the full scoop.
Top Funding Rounds
Top Acquisitions
Recommended Reading
Investment firm Andreesen Horowitz’s AI Canon is an excellent one-stop shop to get spun up on the world of AI and LLMS, especially if you need to separate your LLaMas from your LaMDAs. Check it out!
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