vendors

“…courts are grappling with AI in the justice system” [Yamat] + other items re: legaltech

On 05/13/2025, in Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, Emotion, ethics, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, tools, UK, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

From AI avatars to virtual reality crime scenes, courts are grappling with AI in the justice system — from whec.com by Rio Yamat
The family of a man who died in a road rage shooting incident played a video showing a likeness of him generated with AI.

Defense attorney Jason Lamm won’t be handling the appeal, but said a higher court will likely be asked to weigh in on whether the judge improperly relied on the AI-generated video when sentencing his client.

Courts across the country have been grappling with how to best handle the increasing presence of artificial intelligence in the courtroom. Even before Pelkey’s family used AI to give him a voice for the victim impact portion — believed to be a first in U.S. courts — the Arizona Supreme Court created a committee that researches best AI practices.

In Florida, a judge recently donned a virtual reality headset meant to show the point of view of a defendant who said he was acting in self-defense when he waved a loaded gun at wedding guests. The judge rejected his claim.

Experts say using AI in courtrooms raises legal and ethical concerns, especially if it’s used effectively to sway a judge or jury. And they argue it could have a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities facing prosecution.
…
AI can be very persuasive, Harris said, and scholars are studying the intersection of the technology and manipulation tactics.

Poll: 1 in 3 would let an AI lawyer represent them — from robinai.com

April 29 2025: A major new survey, from legal intelligence platform Robin AI, has revealed a severe lack of trust in the legal industry. Just 1 in 10 people across the US and UK said they fully trust law firms, but while increasingly open to AI-powered legal services, few are ready to let technology take over without human oversight.

Perspectus Global polled a representative sample of 4,152 people across both markets. An overwhelming majority see Big Law as “expensive”, “elitist” or “intimidating” but only 30% of respondents would allow a robot lawyer — that is, an AI system acting alone — to represent them in a legal matter. On average, respondents said they would need a 57% discount to choose an AI lawyer over a human.

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Harvey Made Legal Tech Cool Enough for Silicon Valley to Care Again — from businessinsider.com by Melia Russell

In just three years, the company, which builds software for analyzing and drafting documents using legally tuned large language models, has drawn blue-chip law firms, Silicon Valley investors, and a stampede of rivals hoping to catch its momentum. Harvey has raised over half a billion dollars in capital, sending its valuation soaring to $3 billion.

“Rise of AI-generated deepfake videos spreads misinformation” [iblnews.org] + “New tools for ultimate character consistency” [Cooper] + more

On 05/13/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, digital video, media/film, social media, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

New tools for ultimate character consistency — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather B. Cooper
Plus simple & effective video prompt tips

We have some new tools for character, objects, and scene consistency with Runway and Midjourney.

Multimodal AI = multi-danger — from theneurondaily.com by Grant Harvey

According to a new report from Enkrypt AI, multimodal models have opened the door to sneakier attacks (like Ocean’s Eleven, but with fewer suits and more prompt injections).

Naturally, Enkrypt decided to run a few experiments… and things escalated quickly.

They tested two of Mistral’s newest models—Pixtral-Large and Pixtral-12B, built to handle words and visuals.

What they found? Yikes:

- The models are 40x more likely to generate dangerous chemical / biological / nuclear info.
- And 60x more likely to produce child sexual exploitation material compared to top models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o or Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet.

Rise of AI-generated deepfake videos spreads misinformation — from iblnews.org

Sleep No More: Live experiential learning that’s more like an escape room than a classroom — from chieflearningofficer.com by Clare S. Dygert
The time for passive learning is over. Your learners are ready for experiences that resonate, challenge and transform, and they’re looking to you to provide them.

Live experiential learning: ILT as usual?
Is live experiential learning, or LEL, just a surface rebranding of traditional instructor-led training?

Absolutely not. In fact, LEL is as distant from traditional ILT as Sleep No More is from traditional theater.

Instead of sitting politely, nodding along — or nodding off — as an instructor carefully reads aloud from their slide deck, learners roam about, get their hands dirty and focus on the things that matter to them (yes, even if that means they don’t get to every topic or encounter them in the way we would have liked).

In short, LEL has the ability to shake up your learners, in a good way. And when they realize that this isn’t learning as usual, they land in a mental space that makes them more curious and receptive.

So what does this look like, really? And how does it work?

Improving team performance with collaborative problem-solving — from chieflearningofficer.com by
Exercises for improving the way your team communicates, trusts each other, solves problems and makes decisions.

As learning and development leaders, you can create fun, engaging and challenging exercises for teams that develop these important characteristics and improve numerous markers of team efficacy. Exercises to improve team performance should be focused on four themes: negotiation, agreement, coordination and output. In this article, I’ll discuss each type of exercise briefly, then how I use a framework to create challenging and engaging exercises to improve collaborative problem-solving and performance on my teams.

Microlearning Secrets from Marketers: How to Make Learning Stick — from learningguild.com by Danielle Wallace

Marketers have spent billions of dollars testing what works—and their insights can revolutionize microlearning. By borrowing from marketing’s best strategies, L&D professionals can create microlearning that cuts through the noise, engages learners, and drives real behavior change.

If marketing can make people remember a product, L&D can make people remember a skill.

“Student Guide to AI”; “AI Isn’t Just Changing How We Work — It’s Changing How We Learn”; + other items re: AI in our LE’s

On 05/12/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital learning, digital video, education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, Facebook / Meta Platforms, faculty/staff, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, health, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, learning spaces, media/film, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, new media literacies, online media, online tutoring, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, skills, society, staying relevant, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, workplace, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

.Get the 2025 Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence — from studentguidetoai.org
This guide is made available under a Creative Commons license by Elon University and the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).
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AI Isn’t Just Changing How We Work — It’s Changing How We Learn — from entrepreneur.com by Aytekin Tank; edited by Kara McIntyre
AI agents are opening doors to education that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. Here’s how.

Agentic AI is taking these already huge strides even further. Rather than simply asking a question and receiving an answer, an AI agent can assess your current level of understanding and tailor a reply to help you learn. They can also help you come up with a timetable and personalized lesson plan to make you feel as though you have a one-on-one instructor walking you through the process. If your goal is to learn to speak a new language, for example, an agent might map out a plan starting with basic vocabulary and pronunciation exercises, then progress to simple conversations, grammar rules and finally, real-world listening and speaking practice.
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For instance, if you’re an entrepreneur looking to sharpen your leadership skills, an AI agent might suggest a mix of foundational books, insightful TED Talks and case studies on high-performing executives. If you’re aiming to master data analysis, it might point you toward hands-on coding exercises, interactive tutorials and real-world datasets to practice with.

The beauty of AI-driven learning is that it’s adaptive. As you gain proficiency, your AI coach can shift its recommendations, challenge you with new concepts and even simulate real-world scenarios to deepen your understanding.

Ironically, the very technology feared by workers can also be leveraged to help them. Rather than requiring expensive external training programs or lengthy in-person workshops, AI agents can deliver personalized, on-demand learning paths tailored to each employee’s role, skill level, and career aspirations. Given that 68% of employees find today’s workplace training to be overly “one-size-fits-all,” an AI-driven approach will not only cut costs and save time but will be more effective.

What’s the Future for AI-Free Spaces? — from higherai.substack.com by Jason Gulya
Please let me dream…

This is one reason why I don’t see AI-embedded classrooms and AI-free classrooms as opposite poles. The bone of contention, here, is not whether we can cultivate AI-free moments in the classroom, but for how long those moments are actually sustainable.

Can we sustain those AI-free moments for an hour? A class session? Longer?
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Here’s what I think will happen. As AI becomes embedded in society at large, the sustainability of imposed AI-free learning spaces will get tested. Hard. I think it’ll become more and more difficult (though maybe not impossible) to impose AI-free learning spaces on students.

However, consensual and hybrid AI-free learning spaces will continue to have a lot of value. I can imagine classes where students opt into an AI-free space. Or they’ll even create and maintain those spaces.

Duolingo’s AI Revolution — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
What 148 AI-Generated Courses Tell Us About the Future of Instructional Design & Human Learning

Last week, Duolingo announced an unprecedented expansion: 148 new language courses created using generative AI, effectively doubling their content library in just one year. This represents a seismic shift in how learning content is created — a process that previously took the company 12 years for their first 100 courses.

As CEO Luis von Ahn stated in the announcement, “This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners… allowing us to scale at unprecedented speed and quality.”

In this week’s blog, I’ll dissect exactly how Duolingo has reimagined instructional design through AI, what this means for the learner experience, and most importantly, what it tells us about the future of our profession.

Are Mixed Reality AI Agents the Future of Medical Education? — from ehealth.eletsonline.com

Medical education is experiencing a quiet revolution—one that’s not taking place in lecture theatres or textbooks, but with headsets and holograms. At the heart of this revolution are Mixed Reality (MR) AI Agents, a new generation of devices that combine the immersive depth of mixed reality with the flexibility of artificial intelligence. These technologies are not mere flashy gadgets; they’re revolutionising the way medical students interact with complicated content, rehearse clinical skills, and prepare for real-world situations. By combining digital simulations with the physical world, MR AI Agents are redefining what it means to learn medicine in the 21st century.

4 Reasons To Use Claude AI to Teach — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Features that make Claude AI appealing to educators include a focus on privacy and conversational style.

After experimenting using Claude AI on various teaching exercises, from generating quizzes to tutoring and offering writing suggestions, I found that it’s not perfect, but I think it behaves favorably compared to other AI tools in general, with an easy-to-use interface and some unique features that make it particularly suited for use in education.

“GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok… Wait, Which One Do I Use Again?” [Kubicki] + other legaltech-related items

On 05/06/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Google, law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, Open AI, platforms, podcasting, research, tools, UK, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok… Wait, Which One Do I Use Again? — from thebrainyacts.beehiiv.com by Josh Kubicki
Brainyacts #263

So this edition is simple: a quick, practical guide to the major generative AI models available in 2025 so far. What they’re good at, what to use them for, and where they might fit into your legal work—from document summarization to client communication to research support.

From DSC:
This comprehensive, highly informational posting lists what the model is, its strengths, the best legal use cases for it, and responsible use tips as well.

What’s Happening in LegalTech Other than AI? — from legaltalknetwork.com by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell

Of course AI will continue to make waves, but what other important legal technologies do you need to be aware of in 2025? Dennis and Tom give an overview of legal tech tools—both new and old—you should be using for successful, modernized legal workflows in your practice. They recommend solutions for task management, collaboration, calendars, projects, legal research, and more.

Later, the guys answer a listener’s question about online prompt libraries. Are there reputable, useful prompts available freely on the internet? They discuss their suggestions for prompt resources and share why these libraries tend to quickly become outdated.

LawDroid Founder Tom Martin on Building, Teaching and Advising About AI for Legal — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi and Tom Martin

If you follow legal tech at all, you would be justified in suspecting that Tom Martin has figured out how to use artificial intelligence to clone himself.

While running LawDroid, his legal tech company, the Vancouver-based Martin also still manages a law practice in California, oversees an annual legal tech awards program, teaches a law school course on generative AI, runs an annual AI conference, hosts a podcast, and recently launched a legal tech consultancy.

In January 2023, less than two months after ChatGPT first launched, Martin’s company was one of the first to launch a gen AI assistant specifically for lawyers, called LawDroid Copilot. He has since also launched LawDroid Builder, a no-code platform for creating custom AI agents.

Legal training in the age of AI: A leadership imperative — from thomsonreuters.com by The Hon. Maritza Dominguez Braswell U.S. Magistrate Judge / District of Colorado

In a profession that’s actively contemplating its future in the face of AI, legal organization leaders who demonstrate a genuine desire to invest in the next generation of legal professionals will undoubtedly set themselves apart

Unlocking the power of AI: Opportunities and use cases for law firms — from todaysconveyancer.co.uk

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here. And it’s already reshaping the way law firms operate. Whether automating repetitive tasks, improving risk management, or boosting efficiency, AI presents a genuine opportunity for forward-thinking legal practices. But with new opportunities come new responsibilities. And as firms explore AI tools, it’s essential they consider how to govern them safely and ethically. That’s where an AI policy becomes indispensable.

So, what can AI actually do for your firm right now? Let’s take a closer look.

DC: I’m not necessarily recommending this, but the next two items point out how the use of agents continues to move forward:

The Future is Here: Visa Announces New Era of Commerce Featuring AI

Global leader brings its trusted brand and powerful network to enable payments with new technologies
Launches new innovations and partnerships to drive flexibility, security and acceptance

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The future of commerce is on display at the Visa Global Product Drop with powerful AI-enabled advancements allowing consumers to find and buy with AI plus the introduction of new strategic partnerships and product innovations.

Also related/see:

Find and Buy with AI: Visa Unveils New Era of Commerce — from businesswire.com

Collaborates with Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung, Stripe and more
Will make shopping experiences more personal, more secure and more convenient as they become powered by AI

Introduced [on April 30th] at the Visa Global Product Drop, Visa Intelligent Commerce enables AI to find and buy. It is a groundbreaking new initiative that opens Visa’s payment network to the developers and engineers building the foundational AI agents transforming commerce.

AI agents are the new buyers. How can you market to them? — from aiwithallie.beehiiv.com by Allie Miller
You’re optimizing for people. But the next buyers are bots.

In today’s newsletter, I’m unpacking why your next major buyers won’t be people at all. They’ll be AI agents, and your brand might already be invisible to them. We’ll dig into why traditional marketing strategies are breaking down in the age of autonomous AI shoppers, what “AI optimization” (AIO) really means, and the practical steps you can take right now to make sure your business stays visible and competitive as the new digital gatekeepers take over more digital tasks.

AI platforms and AI agents—the digital assistants that browse and actually do things powered by models like GPT-4o, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and Gemini 2.5 Pro—are increasingly becoming the gatekeepers between your business and potential customers.
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“AI is the new front door to your business for millions of consumers.”

The 40-Point (ish) AI Agent Marketing Playbook
Here’s the longer list. I went ahead and broke these into four categories so you can more easily assign owners: Content, Structure & Design, Technical & Dev, and AI Strategy & Testing. I look forward to seeing how this space, and by extension my advice, changes in the coming months.

Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company’s code was written by AI — from techcrunch.com by Maxwell Zeff

During a fireside chat with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Meta’s LlamaCon conference on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that 20% to 30% of code inside the company’s repositories was “written by software” — meaning AI.

The Top 100Gen AI Consumer Apps — from a16z.com

In just six months, the consumer AI landscape has been redrawn. Some products surged, others stalled, and a few unexpected players rewrote the leaderboard overnight. Deepseek rocketed from obscurity to a leading ChatGPT challenger. AI video models advanced from experimental to fairly dependable (at least for short clips!). And so-called “vibe coding” is changing who can create with AI, not just who can use it. The competition is tighter, the stakes are higher, and the winners aren’t just launching, they’re sticking.

We turned to the data to answer: Which AI apps are people actively using? What’s actually making money, beyond being popular? And which tools are moving beyond curiosity-driven dabbling to become daily staples?

This is the fourth installment of the Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps, our bi-annual ranking of the top 50 AI-first web products (by unique monthly visits, per Similarweb) and top 50 AI-first mobile apps (by monthly active users, per Sensor Tower). Since our last report in August 2024, 17 new companies have entered the rankings of top AI-first web products.

Deep Research with AI: 9 Ways to Get Started — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
Practical strategies for thorough, citation-rich AI research

The AI search landscape is transforming at breakneck speed. New “Deep Research” tools from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity autonomously search and gather information from dozens — even hundreds — of sites, then analyze and synthesize it to produce comprehensive reports. While a human might take days or weeks to produce these 30-page citation-backed reports, AI Deep Research reports are ready in minutes.

What’s in this post

- Examples of each report type I generated for my research, so you can form your own impressions.
- Tips on why & how to use Deep Research and how to craft effective queries.
- Comparison of key features and strengths/limitations of the top platforms

AI Agents Are Here—So Are the Threats: Unit 42 Unveils the Top 10 AI Agent Security Risks — from marktechpost.com

As AI agents transition from experimental systems to production-scale applications, their growing autonomy introduces novel security challenges. In a comprehensive new report, “AI Agents Are Here. So Are the Threats,” Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 reveals how today’s agentic architectures—despite their innovation—are vulnerable to a wide range of attacks, most of which stem not from the frameworks themselves, but from the way agents are designed, deployed, and connected to external tools.

To evaluate the breadth of these risks, Unit 42 researchers constructed two functionally identical AI agents—one built using CrewAI and the other with AutoGen. Despite architectural differences, both systems exhibited the same vulnerabilities, confirming that the underlying issues are not framework-specific. Instead, the threats arise from misconfigurations, insecure prompt design, and insufficiently hardened tool integrations—issues that transcend implementation choices.

LLMs Can Learn Complex Math from Just One Example: Researchers from University of Washington, Microsoft, and USC Unlock the Power of 1-Shot Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Reward — from marktechpost.com by Sana Hassan

Nearly half of Gen Z and millennials say college was a waste of money—AI has already made degrees obsolete — from fortune.com by Preston Fore

College is often advertised as the best four years of one’s life, but many Americans now have regrets.

More than a third of all graduates now say their degree was a “waste of money,” according to a new survey by Indeed. This frustration is especially pronounced among Gen Z, with 51% expressing remorse—compared to 41% of millennials and just 20% of baby boomers.

Overall, a growing share of college-educated workers are questioning the return on investment (ROI) of their degree, Kyle M.K., a career trend expert at Indeed, told Fortune. It’s something that’s not all too surprising considering that the average cost of a bachelor’s degree has doubled in the last two decades to over $38,000, and total student loan debt has ballooned to nearly $2 trillion.

“Another 38% feel student loans have limited their career growth more than their diploma has accelerated it,” M.K. said.

“AI won’t invalidate a solid education, but it will reward those who keep upgrading their toolkit.”

Average Cost of College & Tuition — from educationdata.org
Last Updated: March 8, 2025

Report Highlights. The average cost of college^* in the United States is $38,270 per student per year, including books, supplies, and daily living expenses.

The average cost of college has more than doubled in the 21st century; the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of tuition is 4.04%.
The average in-state student attending a public 4-year institution and living on-campus spends $27,146 for one academic year.
The average cost of in-state tuition alone is $9,750; out-of-state tuition averages $28,386.
The average private, nonprofit university student spends $58,628 per academic year living on campus, $38,421 of it on tuition and fees.
Considering student loan interest and loss of income, investing in a bachelor’s degree can ultimately cost in excess of $500,000.

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From DSC:
Reminds me of a graphic that Yohan Na and I created back in 2009:
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MOOC-Style Skills Training — from the-job.beehiiv.com by Paul Fain
WGU and tech companies use Open edX for flexible online learning. Could community colleges be next?

Open Source for Affordable Online Reach
The online titan Western Governors University is experimenting with an open-source learning platform. So are Verizon and the Indian government. And the platform’s leaders want to help community colleges take the plunge on competency-based education.
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The Open edX platform inherently supports self-paced learning and offers several features that make it a good fit for competency-based education and skills-forward learning, says Stephanie Khurana, Axim’s CEO.

“Flexible modalities and a focus on competence instead of time spent learning improves access and affordability for learners who balance work and life responsibilities alongside their education,” she says.

“Plus, being open source means institutions and organizations can collaborate to build and share CBE-specific tools and features,” she says, “which could lower costs and speed up innovation across the field.”

Axim thinks Open edX’s ability to scale affordably can support community colleges in reaching working learners across an underserved market.

Micro-Credentials Impact Report [coursera.org]

On 05/02/2025, in career development, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, credentialing, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, skills, student-related, teaching & learning, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Micro-Credentials Impact Report — from coursera.org
Get exclusive insights on how industry-aligned micro- credentials are bridging skill gaps, driving career outcomes, and building a future-ready workforce—with data from 2,000+ students and employers across six regions.

See how micro-credentials are driving student success, meeting industry demand, and transforming higher education institutions. Deliver industry-aligned learning with confidence—whether you’re leading a university or designing workforce development programs.
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Our data shows that 90% of employers are willing to offer higher starting salaries to those with micro-credentials. Most offer 10–15% more for credit-bearing vs. non-credit credentials—even higher for GenAI. Help your graduates earn more by integrating micro-credentials into your programs.
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Students are 2x as likely to choose programs with micro-credentials—even more if credentials are credit-bearing, the report finds. Higher education leaders echo this trend, with 7 in 10 saying students are more likely to enroll in programs that offer micro-credentials for academic credit.

“Adobe Firefly: The next evolution of creative AI is here” + some other items re: AI in general

On 04/25/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Adobe, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, content development, aggregation, repositories, copyright/ownership/NFTs, corporate / business world, ethics, morals/values, productivity / tips and tricks, society, tools, UK, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Values in the wild: Discovering and analyzing values in real-world language model interactions — from anthropic.com

In the latest research paper from Anthropic’s Societal Impacts team, we describe a practical way we’ve developed to observe Claude’s values—and provide the first large-scale results on how Claude expresses those values during real-world conversations. We also provide an open dataset for researchers to run further analysis of the values and how often they arise in conversations.

Per the Rundown AI

Why it matters: AI is increasingly shaping real-world decisions and relationships, making understanding their actual values more crucial than ever. This study also moves the alignment discussion toward more concrete observations, revealing that AI’s morals and values may be more contextual and situational than a static point of view.

Also from Anthropic, see:

Anthropic Education Report: How University Students Use Claude

Adobe Firefly: The next evolution of creative AI is here — from blog.adobe.com

In just under two years, Adobe Firefly has revolutionized the creative industry and generated more than 22 billion assets worldwide. Today at Adobe MAX London, we’re unveiling the latest release of Firefly, which unifies AI-powered tools for image, video, audio, and vector generation into a single, cohesive platform and introduces many new capabilities.

The new Firefly features enhanced models, improved ideation capabilities, expanded creative options, and unprecedented control. This update builds on earlier momentum when we introduced the Firefly web app and expanded into video and audio with Generate Video, Translate Video, and Translate Audio features.

Per The Rundown AI (here):

Why it matters: OpenAI’s recent image generator and other rivals have shaken up creative workflows, but Adobe’s IP-safe focus and the addition of competing models into Firefly allow professionals to remain in their established suite of tools — keeping users in the ecosystem while still having flexibility for other model strengths.

“AI agents arrive in US classrooms” [Rajkumar] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

On 04/25/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, personalized/customized learning, podcasting, research, teachers, teaching & learning, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

AI agents arrive in US classrooms — from zdnet.com by Radhika Rajkumar
Kira AI’s personalized learning platform is currently being implemented in Tennessee schools. How will it change education?

AI for education is a new but rapidly expanding field. Can it support student outcomes and help teachers avoid burnout?

On Wednesday, AI education company Kira launched a “fully AI-native learning platform” for K-12 education, complete with agents to assist teachers with repetitive tasks. The platform hosts assignments, analyzes progress data, offers administrative assistance, helps build lesson plans and quizzes, and more.

“Unlike traditional tools that merely layer AI onto existing platforms, Kira integrates artificial intelligence directly into every educational workflow — from lesson planning and instruction to grading, intervention, and reporting,” the release explains. “This enables schools to improve student outcomes, streamline operations, and provide personalized support at scale.”

Also relevant/see:

Coursera Founder Andrew Ng’s New Venture Brings A.I. to K–12 Classrooms — from observer.com by Victor Dey
Andrew Ng’s Kira Learning uses A.I. agents to transform K–12 education with tools for teachers, students and administrators.

“Teachers today are overloaded with repetitive tasks. A.I. agents can change that, and free up their time to give more personalized help to students,” Ng said in a statement.

Kira was co-founded by Andrea Pasinetti and Jagriti Agrawal, both longtime collaborators of Ng. The platform embeds A.I. directly into lesson planning, instruction, grading and reporting. Teachers can instantly generate standards-aligned lesson plans, monitor student progress in real time and receive automated intervention strategies when a student falls behind.

Students, in turn, receive on-demand tutoring tailored to their learning styles. A.I. agents adapt to each student’s pace and mastery level, while grading is automated with instant feedback—giving educators time to focus on teaching.

‘Using GenAI is easier than asking my supervisor for support’ — from timeshighereducation.com
Doctoral researchers are turning to generative AI to assist in their research. How are they using it, and how can supervisors and candidates have frank discussions about using it responsibly?

Generative AI is increasingly the proverbial elephant in the supervisory room. As supervisors, you may be concerned about whether your doctoral researchers are using GenAI. It can be a tricky topic to broach, especially when you may not feel confident in understanding the technology yourself.

While the potential impact of GenAI use among undergraduate and postgraduate taught students, especially, is well discussed (and it is increasingly accepted that students and staff need to become “AI literate”), doctoral researchers often slip through the cracks in institutional guidance and policymaking.

AI as a Thought Partner in Higher Education — from er.educause.edu by Brian Basgen

When used thoughtfully and transparently, generative artificial intelligence can augment creativity and challenge assumptions, making it an excellent tool for exploring and developing ideas.
…
The glaring contrast between the perceived ubiquity of GenAI and its actual use also reveals fundamental challenges associated with the practical application of these tools. This article explores two key questions about GenAI to address common misconceptions and encourage broader adoption and more effective use of these tools in higher education.

AI for Automation or Augmentation of L&D? — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman
An audio summary of my Learning Technologies talk

Like many of you, I spent the first part of this week at Learning Technologies in London, where I was lucky enough to present a session on the current state of AI and L&D.

In this week’s blog post, I summarise what I covered and share an audio summary of my paper for you to check out.

Bridging the AI Trust Gap — from chronicle.com by Ian Wilhelm, Derek Bruff, Gemma Garcia, and Lee Rainie

In a 2024 Chronicle survey, 86 percent of administrators agreed with the statement: “Generative artificial intelligence tools offer an opportunity for higher education to improve how it educates, operates, and conducts research.” In contrast, just 55 percent of faculty agreed, showing the stark divisions between faculty and administrative perspectives on adopting AI.

Among many faculty members, a prevalent distrust of AI persists — and for valid reasons. How will it impact in-class instruction? What does the popularity of generative AI tools portend for the development of critical thinking skills for Gen-Z students? How can institutions, at the administrative level, develop policies to safeguard against students using these technologies as tools for cheating?

Given this increasing ‘trust gap,’ how can faculty and administrators work together to preserve academic integrity as AI seeps into all areas of academia, from research to the classroom?

Join us for “Bridging the AI Trust Gap,” an extended, 75-minute Virtual Forum exploring the trust gap on campus about AI, the contours of the differences, and what should be done about it.

How to Use AI and Universal Design to Empower Diverse Thinkers with Susan Tanner — from legaltalknetwork.com by Zack Glaser, Stephanie Everett, and Susan Tanner

What if the key to better legal work isn’t just smarter tools but more inclusive ones? Susan Tanner, Associate Professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law, joins Zack Glaser to explore how AI and universal design can improve legal education and law firm operations. Susan shares how tools like generative AI can support neurodiverse thinkers, enhance client communication, and reduce anxiety for students and professionals alike. They also discuss the importance of inclusive design in legal tech and how law firms can better support their teams by embracing different ways of thinking to build a more accessible, future-ready practice. The conversation emphasizes the need for educators and legal professionals to adapt to the evolving landscape of AI, ensuring that they leverage its capabilities to better serve their clients and students.

Maximizing Microsoft Copilot in Your Legal Practice — from legaltalknetwork.com by Tom Mighell, Dennis Kennedy, and Ben Schorr

Copilot is a powerful tool for lawyers, but are you making the most of it within your Microsoft apps? Tom Mighell is flying solo at ABA TECHSHOW 2025 and welcomes Microsoft’s own Ben Schorr to the podcast. Ben shares expert insights into how lawyers can implement Copilot’s AI-assistance to work smarter, not harder. From drafting documents to analyzing spreadsheets to streamlining communication, Copilot can handle the tedious tasks so you can focus on what really matters. Ben shares numerous use-cases and capabilities for attorneys and later gives a sneak peek at Copilot’s coming enhancements.

Higher Ed Institutions Rely Less on OPMs While Increasingly Hiring Fee-For-Service Models — from iblnews.org

A market report from Validated Insights released this month notes that fewer colleges and universities hire external online program management (OPM) companies to develop their courses.

For 2024, higher education institutions launched only 81 new partnerships with OPMs — a drop of 42% and the lowest number since 2016.

The report showed that institutions increasingly pay OPMs a fee-for-service instead of following a revenue-sharing model with big service bundles and profit splits.

Experts say revenue-sharing models, which critics denounce as predatory arrangements, incentivize service providers to use aggressive recruiting tactics to increase enrollments and maximize tuition revenue.

According to the report, fee-for-service has become the dominant business model for OPMs.

6 Online Edtech Professional Learning Communities & Resources for Teachers — from techlearning.com by Stephanie Smith Budhai, Ph.D.
These resources can help provide training, best practices, and advice, for using digital tools such as Canva, Curipod, Kahoot!, and more

While school-led professional development can be helpful, there are online professional learning communities on various edtech websites that can be leveraged. Also, some of these community spaces offer the chance to monetize your work.

Here is a summary of six online edtech professional learning spaces.

Bob Ambrogi posts several solid items re: legaltech & legal education

On 04/17/2025, in Access to Justice (A2J), Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, collaboration, Europe, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, research, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, by Daniel Christian

Thomson Reuters Survey: Over 95% of Legal Professionals Expect Gen AI to Become Central to Workflow Within Five Year — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Thomson Reuters today released its 2025 Generative AI in Professional Services Report, and it reveals that legal professionals have become increasingly optimistic about generative AI, with adoption rates nearly doubling over the past year and a growing belief that the technology should be incorporated into legal work.

According to the report, 26% of legal organizations are now actively using gen AI, up from 14% in 2024. While only 15% of law firm respondents say gen AI is currently central to their workflow, a striking 78% believe it will become central within the next five years.

AI-Powered Legal Work Redefined: Libra Launches Major Update for Legal Professionals — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Berlin, April 14, 2025 – Berlin-based Legal Tech startup Libra is launching its most comprehensive update to date, leveraging AI to relieve law firms and legal departments of routine tasks, accelerate research, and improve team collaboration. “Libra v2” combines highly developed AI, a modern user interface, and practical tools to set a new standard for efficient and precise work in all legal areas.

“We listened intently to feedback from law firms and in-house teams,” said Viktor von Essen, founder of Libra. “The result is Libra v2: an AI solution that intelligently supports every step of daily legal work – from initial research to final contract review. We want legal experts to be able to fully concentrate on what is essential: excellent legal advice.”

The Three Cs of Teaching Technology to Law Students — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

In law practice today, technology is no longer optional — it’s essential. As practicing attorneys increasingly rely on technology tools to serve clients, conduct research, manage documents and streamline workflows, the question is often debated: Are law schools adequately preparing students for this reality?

Unfortunately, for the majority of law schools, the answer is no. But that only begs the question: What should they be doing?

A coincidence of events last week had me thinking about law schools and legal tech, chief among them my attendance at LIT Con, Suffolk Law School’s annual conference to showcase legal innovation and technology — with a portion of it devoted to access-to-justice projects developed by Suffolk Law students themselves.

While not from Bob, I’m also going to include this one here:

Your AI Options: 7 Considerations Before You Buy — from artificiallawyer.com by Liza Pestillos-Ocat

But here’s the problem: not all AI is useful and not all of it is built for the way your legal team works.

Most firms aren’t asking whether they should use AI because they already are. The real question now is what comes next? How do you expand the value of AI across more teams, more matters, and more workflows without introducing unnecessary risk, complexity, or cost?

To get this right, legal professionals need to understand which tools will solve real problems and deliver the most value to their team. That starts with asking better questions, including the ones that follow, before making your next investment in AI for lawyers.

Organizing Teams for Continuous Learning: A Complete Guide [intelligentHQ]

On 04/16/2025, in business, collaboration, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, training / L&D, using teams, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Organizing Teams for Continuous Learning: A Complete Guide — from intelligenthq.com

In today’s fast-paced business world, continuous learning has become a vital element for both individual and organizational growth. Teams that foster a culture of learning remain adaptable, innovative, and competitive. However, simply encouraging learning isn’t enough; the way teams are structured and supported plays a huge role in achieving long-term success. In this guide, we’ll explore how to effectively organize teams for continuous learning, leveraging tools, strategies, and best practices.

Learning Ecosystems

“Sleep No More: Live experiential learning that’s more like an escape room than a classroom” [Dygert]

MOOC-Style Skills Training [Fain]

Organizing Teams for Continuous Learning: A Complete Guide [intelligentHQ]

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