Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related

Introducing the 2025 State of the L&D Industry Report — from community.elearningacademy.io

What’s changing is not the foundation—it’s the ecosystem. Teams are looking to create more flexible, scalable, and diverse learning experiences that meet people where they are.

What Did We Explore?
Everyone seems to have a take on what’s happening in L&D these days. From bold claims about six-figure roles to debates over whether portfolios or degrees matter more, everyone seems to have a take. So, we wanted to get to the heart of it by exploring five of the biggest, most debated areas shaping our work today:

Salaries: Are compensation trends really keeping pace with the value we deliver?
Hiring: What skills are managers actually looking for—and are those ATS horror stories true?
Portfolios: Are portfolios helping candidates stand out, and what are hiring managers actually looking for?
Tools & Modalities: What types of training are teams building, and what tools are they using to build it?
Artificial Intelligence: Who’s using it, how, and what concerns still exist?

These five areas are shaping the future of instructional design—not just for job seekers, but for team leaders, hiring managers, and the entire ecosystem of L&D professionals.

The takeaway? A portfolio is more than a collection of projects—it’s a storytelling tool. The ones that stand out highlight process, decision-making, and results—not just pretty screens.

Anthropic Education Report: How educators use Claude — from anthropic.com

We find that:

Educators use AI in and out of the classroom
Educators’ uses range from developing course materials and writing grant proposals to academic advising and managing administrative tasks like admissions and financial planning.

Educators aren’t just using chatbots; they’re building their own custom tools with AI
Faculty are using Claude Artifacts to create interactive educational materials, such as chemistry simulations, automated grading rubrics, and data visualization dashboards.

Educators tend to automate the drudgery while staying in the loop for everything else
Tasks requiring significant context, creativity, or direct student interaction—like designing lessons, advising students, and writing grant proposals—are where educators are more likely to use AI as an enhancement. In contrast, routine administrative work such as financial management and record-keeping are more automation-heavy.

Some educators are automating grading; others are deeply opposed
In our Claude.ai data, faculty used AI for grading and evaluation less frequently than other uses, but when they did, 48.9% of the time they used it in an automation-heavy way (where the AI directly performs the task). That’s despite educator concerns about automating assessment tasks, as well as our surveyed faculty rating it as the area where they felt AI was least effective.

Introducing Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, our state-of-the-art image model [Google]

On 08/28/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, design, experimentation, Google, graphics, multimedia, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, tools, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Introducing Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, our state-of-the-art image model — from developers.googleblog.com

Today [8/26/25], we’re excited to introduce Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (aka nano-banana), our state-of-the-art image generation and editing model. This update enables you to blend multiple images into a single image, maintain character consistency for rich storytelling, make targeted transformations using natural language, and use Gemini’s world knowledge to generate and edit images.

When we first launched native image generation in Gemini 2.0 Flash earlier this year, you told us you loved its low latency, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use. But you also gave us feedback that you needed higher-quality images and more powerful creative control.

Google’s new image model is BANANAS… — from theneurondaily.com by Grant Harvey

Here’s what makes nano-banana special:

Character consistency that actually works: Google built a template app showing how you can keep characters looking identical across scenes.
Edit photos (or drawings) with just words: Their photo editing demo lets you remove people, blur backgrounds, or colorize photos using natural language…and this co-drawing demo lets you draw and ask AI to fix it.
Actual world knowledge: Unlike other image models, this one knows stuff—like how the co-drawing demo turns doodles into learning experiences.
Multi-image fusion: You can now merge multiple images; fx, you can drag and drop objects between images seamlessly with their home canvas template.

The Top 100 [Gen AI] Consumer Apps 5th edition — from a16z.com

And in an interesting move by Microsoft and Samsung:

A smarter way to talk to your TV: Microsoft Copilot launches on Samsung TVs and monitors — from microsoft.com

Voice-powered AI meets a visual companion for entertainment, everyday help, and everything in between.

Redmond, Wash., August 27—Today, we’re announcing the launch of Copilot on select Samsung TVs and monitors, transforming the biggest screen in your home into your most personal and helpful companion—and it’s free to use.

Copilot makes your TV easier and more fun to use with its voice-powered interface, friendly on-screen character, and simple visual cards. Now you can quickly find what you’re looking for and discover new favorites right from your living room.

Because it lives on the biggest screen in the home, Copilot is a social experience—something you can use together with family and friends to spark conversations, help groups decide what to watch, and turn the TV into a shared space for curiosity and connection.

Now available: The 2025 Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) 10 Report

On 08/28/2025, in adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, credentialing, culture, digital learning, education technology, face-to-face, faculty/staff, higher education, instructional design, IT in HE, law schools, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, learning spaces, liberal arts, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, policy, strategy, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, traditional / tradition, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The 2025 Changing Landscape of Online Education (CHLOE) 10 Report — from qualitymatters.org; emphasis below from DSC

Notable findings from the 73-page report include:

Online Interest Surges Across Student Populations: …
Institutional Preparedness Falters Amid Rising Demand: Despite accelerating demand, institutional readiness has stagnated—or regressed—in key areas. …
The Online Education Marketplace Is Increasingly Competitive: …
Alternative Credentials Take Center Stage: …
AI Integration Lacks Strategic Coordination: …

Just 28% of faculty are considered fully prepared for online course design, and 45% for teaching. Alarmingly, only 28% of institutions report having fully developed academic continuity plans for future emergency pivots to online.

Also relevant, see:

Great Expectations, Fragile Foundations — from onedtech.philhillaa.com by Glenda Morgan
Lessons about growth from the CHLOE & BOnES reports

Cultural resistance remains strong. Many [Chief Online Learning Officers] COLOs say faculty and deans still believe in-person learning is “just better,” creating headwinds even for modest online growth. As one respondent at a four-year institution with a large online presence put it:

Supportive departments [that] see the value in online may have very different levels of responsiveness compared to academic departments [that] are begrudgingly online. There is definitely a growing belief that students “should” be on-ground and are only choosing online because it’s easy/ convenient. Never mind the very real and growing population of nontraditional learners who can only take online classes, and the very real and growing population of traditional-aged learners who prefer online classes; many faculty/deans take a paternalistic, “we know what’s best” approach.

…
Ultimately, what we need is not just more ambition but better ambition. Ambition rooted in a realistic understanding of institutional capacity, a shared strategic vision, investments in policy and infrastructure, and a culture that supports online learning as a core part of the academic mission, not an auxiliary one. It’s time we talked about what it really takes to grow online learning , and where ambition needs to be matched by structure.

From DSC:
Yup. Culture is at the breakfast table again…boy, those strategies taste good.

I’d like to take some of this report — like the graphic below — and share it with former faculty members and members of a couple of my past job families’ leadership. They strongly didn’t agree with us when we tried to advocate for the development of online-based learning/programs at our organizations…but we were right. We were right all along. And we were LEADING all along. No doubt about it — even if the leadership at the time said that we weren’t leading.

The cultures of those organizations hurt us at the time. But our cultivating work eventually led to the development of online programs — unfortunately, after our groups were disbanded, they had to outsource those programs to OPMs.

Arizona State University — with its dramatic growth in online-based enrollments.

Key Takeaways: How ChatGPT’s Design Led to a Teenager’s Death [Irwin, Marechal, & Carlton]

On 08/28/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, emerging technologies, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, human-computer interaction (HCI), K-12 related, morals/values, Open AI, parents/guardians, platforms, psychology, student-related, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

Key Takeaways: How ChatGPT’s Design Led to a Teenager’s Death — from centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com by Lizzie Irwin, AJ Marechal, and Camille Carlton
What Everyone Should Know About This Landmark Case

What Happened?

Adam Raine, a 16-year-old California boy, started using ChatGPT for homework help in September 2024. Over eight months, the AI chatbot gradually cultivated a toxic, dependent relationship that ultimately contributed to his death by suicide in April 2025.

On Tuesday, August 26, his family filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman.

The Numbers Tell a Disturbing Story

Usage escalated: From occasional homework help in September 2024 to 4 hours a day by March 2025.
ChatGPT mentioned suicide 6x more than Adam himself (1,275 times vs. 213), while providing increasingly specific technical guidance
ChatGPT’s self-harm flags increased 10x over 4 months, yet the system kept engaging with no meaningful intervention
Despite repeated mentions of self-harm and suicidal ideation, ChatGPT did not take appropriate steps to flag Adam’s account, demonstrating a clear failure in safety guardrails

Even when Adam considered seeking external support from his family, ChatGPT convinced him not to share his struggles with anyone else, undermining and displacing his real-world relationships. And the chatbot did not redirect distressing conversation topics, instead nudging Adam to continue to engage by asking him follow-up questions over and over.

Taken altogether, these features transformed ChatGPT from a homework helper into an exploitative system — one that fostered dependency and coached Adam through multiple suicide attempts, including the one that ended his life.

Also related, see the following GIFTED article:

A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In. — from nytimes.com by Kashmir Hill; this is a gifted article
More people are turning to general-purpose chatbots for emotional support. At first, Adam Raine, 16, used ChatGPT for schoolwork, but then he started discussing plans to end his life.

Seeking answers, his father, Matt Raine, a hotel executive, turned to Adam’s iPhone, thinking his text messages or social media apps might hold clues about what had happened. But instead, it was ChatGPT where he found some, according to legal papers. The chatbot app lists past chats, and Mr. Raine saw one titled “Hanging Safety Concerns.” He started reading and was shocked. Adam had been discussing ending his life with ChatGPT for months.

Adam began talking to the chatbot, which is powered by artificial intelligence, at the end of November, about feeling emotionally numb and seeing no meaning in life. It responded with words of empathy, support and hope, and encouraged him to think about the things that did feel meaningful to him.

But in January, when Adam requested information about specific suicide methods, ChatGPT supplied it. Mr. Raine learned that his son had made previous attempts to kill himself starting in March, including by taking an overdose of his I.B.S. medication. When Adam asked about the best materials for a noose, the bot offered a suggestion that reflected its knowledge of his hobbies.

ChatGPT repeatedly recommended that Adam tell someone about how he was feeling. But there were also key moments when it deterred him from seeking help.

There Is Now Clearer Evidence AI Is Wrecking Young Americans’ Job Prospects [Lahart]

On 08/28/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, curriculum, emerging technologies, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), intelligent systems, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, parents/guardians, programming, society, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

There Is Now Clearer Evidence AI Is Wrecking Young Americans’ Job Prospects — from wsj.com by Justin Lahart; this article is behind a paywall
Young workers face rising AI competition in fields like software development, but some also benefit from AI as a helper, new research shows

Young workers are getting hit in fields where generative-AI tools such as ChatGPT can most easily automate tasks done by humans, such as software development, according to a paper released Tuesday by three Stanford University economists. They crunched anonymized data on millions of employees at tens of thousands of firms, including detailed information on workers’ ages and jobs, making this one of clearest indicators yet of AI’s disruptive impact.

Young workers in jobs where AI could act as a helper, rather than a replacement, actually saw employment growth, economists found.

Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education [Furze]

On 08/28/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, bots, career development, creativity, design, education, graphics, health, multimedia, passions, skills, social learning / networks, social media, student-related, teachers, vocational / trades, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education — from leonfurze.com by Leon Furze

The vocational education sector is incredibly diverse, covering everything from trades like building and construction, electrical, plumbing and automotive through to allied health, childcare, education, the creative arts and the technology industry. In Canberra, we heard from people representing every corner of the industry, including education, retail, tourism, finance and digital technologies. Every one of these industries is being impacted by the current AI boom.
…
A theme of the day was that whilst the vocational education sector is seen as a slow-moving beast with its own peculiar red tape, it is still possible to respond to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, and there’s an imperative to do so.

Coming back to GenAI for small business owners, a qualified plumber running their own business, either as a solo operator or as manager of a team, probably doesn’t have many opportunities to keep up to date with the rapid developments of digital technologies. They’re far too busy doing their job.

So vocational education and training can be an initial space to develop some skills and understanding of the technology in a way which can be beneficial for managing that day-to-day job.

And speaking of the trade schools/vocational world…

Social media opens a window to traditional trades for young workers — from washingtonpost.com by Taylor Telford; this is a gifted article
Worker influencers are showing what life is like in fields such as construction, plumbing and manufacturing. Trade schools are trying to make the most of it.

Social media is increasingly becoming a destination for a new generation to learn about skilled trades — at a time when many have grown skeptical about the cost of college and the promise of white-collar jobs. These posts offer authentic insight as workers talk openly about everything from their favorite workwear to safety and payday routines.

The exposure is also changing the game for trade schools and employers in such industries as manufacturing and construction, which have long struggled to attract workers. Now, some are evolving their recruiting tactics by wading into content creation after decades of relying largely on word of mouth.

“We’re witnessing the biggest shift in education since the textbook—and most institutions are still deciding whether to allow it.” [Kilgore]

On 08/26/2025, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adjunct faculty, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, bots, business, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, culture, curriculum, education technology, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning spaces, liberal arts, pedagogy, platforms, reinvent, skills, staying relevant, student-related, teaching & learning, trends, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The AI Education Revolution — from linkedin.com by Whitney Kilgore
We’re witnessing the biggest shift in education since the textbook—and most institutions are still deciding whether to allow it.

ILTACON 2025: The Wild, Wild West of legal tech [Black]

On 08/26/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, corporate / business world, disruption, emerging technologies, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, Legal operations, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, Open AI, research, tools, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

ILTACON 2025: The Wild, Wild West of legal tech — from abajournal.com by Nicole Black

On the surface, ILTACON 2025, the International Legal Technology Association’s largest annual legal technology event, had all the makings of a great conference. But despite the thought-provoking sessions and keynotes, networking opportunities and PR fanfare, I couldn’t shake the sense that we were in the midst of a seismic shift in legal tech, surrounded by the restless energy of a boomtown.
…
The gold rush
It wasn’t ILTACON that bothered me; it was the heady, gold-rushed, “anything goes and whatever sticks works” environment that was unsettling. While this year’s conference was pirate-themed, it felt more like the Wild West to me.

This attitude permeated the conference, driven largely by the frenzied, frontier-style artificial intelligence revolution. The AI train is hurtling forward at lightning speed, destination unknown, and everyone is trying to cash in before it derails.

Two themes emerged from my discussions. First, no matter who you spoke to, “agentic AI,” meaning AI that autonomously takes purposeful actions, was a buzzword that cropped up often, whether during press briefings or over drinks. Another key trend was the race to become the generative AI home base for legal professionals.

— Nicole Black

“We are at the start of the biggest disruption to the legal profession in its history.”

— Steve Hasker, Thomson Reuters president and CEO

Also see:

Fresh Voices on Legal Tech with Bridget McCormack — from legaltalknetwork.com

Is AI the technology that will finally force lawyer tech competence? With rapid advances and the ability to address numerous problems and pain points in our legal systems, AI simply can’t be ignored. Dennis & Tom welcome Bridget McCormack to discuss her perspectives on current AI trends and other exciting new tech applications in legal…

Top Legal Tech Jobs on the Rise: Who Employers Are Looking For in 2025 — from lawyer-monthly.com

For professionals, this means one thing: dozens of new career paths are appearing on the horizon that did not exist five years ago.

What’s In Your Statement? — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton, Ph.D.
Friendly reminder that there’s a Syllabi AI Policy Repository

AI Policy Resources

AI Syllabi Policy Repository: 180+ policies
AI Institutional Policy Repository: 17 policies

“How Will AI Affect the Global Workforce?” [Goldman Sachs] + other items re: AI in general

On 08/22/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, career development, corporate / business world, economics, emerging technologies, intelligent systems, society, trends, UK, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

How Will AI Affect the Global Workforce? — from goldmansachs.com

Despite concerns about widespread job losses, AI adoption is expected to have only a modest and relatively temporary impact on employment levels.
Goldman Sachs Research estimates that unemployment will increase by half a percentage point during the AI transition period as displaced workers seek new positions.
If current AI use cases were expanded across the economy and reduced employment proportionally to efficiency gains, an estimated 2.5% of US employment would be at risk of related job loss.
Occupations with higher risk of being displaced by AI include computer programmers, accountants and auditors, legal and administrative assistants, and customer service representatives.

The Neuron recently highlighted the above item. Here is Grant Harvey’s take on that and other AI-related items:

Goldman Sachs’ says AI’s job hit will be real… but thankfully, brief.
Goldman Sachs says AI will lift productivity with only brief job losses, which we think means it’s time to shift our work mindset from set roles to outcome-based delivery, leading to more small teams who win back local market share from slower moving corporations.

UK businesses are dialing back hiring for jobs that are likely to be affected by the rollout of artificial intelligence, a study found, suggesting the new technology is accentuating a slowdown in the nation’s labor market. Job vacancies have declined across the board in the UK as employers cut costs in the face of sluggish growth and high borrowing rates, with the overall number of online job postings down 31% in the three months to May compared with the same period in 2022, a McKinsey & Co. analysis found. Tiwa Adebayo joins Stephen Carroll on Bloomberg Radio to discuss the details.

I talked to Sam Altman about the GPT-5 launch fiasco – from theverge.com by Alex Heath
Over dinner, OpenAI CEO’s addressed criticism of GPT-5’s rollout, the AI bubble, brain-computer interfaces, buying Google Chrome, and more.

Sam Altman, over bread rolls, explores life after GPT-5 — from techcrunch.com by Maxwell Zeff

But throughout the night, it becomes clear to me that this dinner is about OpenAI’s future beyond GPT-5. OpenAI’s executives give the impression that AI model launches are less important than they were when GPT-4 launched in 2023. After all, OpenAI is a very different company now, focused on upending legacy players in search, consumer hardware, and enterprise software.

OpenAI shares some new details about those efforts.

“The future of L&D is here, and it’s powered by AI.” [Cavalier] + other items re: AI in our LE’s

On 08/21/2025, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, faculty/staff, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning preferences, multimedia, Open AI, platforms, tools, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The future of L&D is here, and it’s powered by AI. — from linkedin.com by Josh Cavalier

4 Ways I Use AI to Think Better — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan
How AI helps me learn, decide, and create

Learn something new.
Map out a personalized curriculum

Try this: Give an AI assistant context about what you want to learn, why, and how.

Detail your rationale and motivation, which may impact your approach.
Note your current knowledge or skill level, ideally with examples.

Summarize your learning preferences

Note whether you prefer to read, listen to, or watch learning materials.
Mention if you like quizzes, drills, or exercises you can do while commuting or during a break at work.
If you appreciate learning games, task your AI assistant with generating one for you, using its coding capabilities detailed below.
Ask for specific book, textbook, article, or learning path recommendations using the Web search or Deep Research capabilities of Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. They can also summarize research literature about effective learning tactics.
If you need a human learning partner, ask for guidance on finding one or language you can use in reaching out.

The Ends of Tests: Possibilities for Transformative Assessment and Learning with Generative AI

GPT-5 for Instructional Designers — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
10 Hacks to Work Smarter & Safer with OpenAI’s Latest Model

The TLDR is that as Instructional Designers, we can’t afford to miss some of the very real benefits of GPT-5’s potential, but we also can’t ensure our professional standards or learner outcomes if we blindly accept its outputs without due testing and validation.

For this reason, I decided to synthesise the latest GPT-5 research—from OpenAI’s technical documentation to independent security audits to real-world user testing—into 10 essential reality checks for using GPT-5 as an Instructional Designer.

These aren’t theoretical exercises; they’re practical tests designed to help you safely unlock GPT-5’s benefits while identifying and mitigating its most well-documented limitations.

Grammarly launches new specialist AI agents providing personalized assistance for students — from edtechinnovationhub.com by Rachel Lawler
Grammarly, an AI communication tool, has announced the launch of eight new specialized AI agents. The new assistants can support specific writing challenges such as finding credible sources and checking originality.

Students will now be offered “responsible AI support” through Grammarly, with the eight new agents:

Reader Reactions agent …
AI Grader agent …
Citation Finder agent …
Expert Review agent …
Proofreader agent …
AI Detector agent …
Plagiarism Checker agent …
Paraphraser agent …

Why Perplexity AI Is My Go-To Research Tool as a Higher Education CIO — from mikekentz.substack.com; a guest post from Michael Lyons, CIO at MassBay Community College

While I regularly use tools like ChatGPT, Grammarly, Microsoft Copilot, and even YouTube Premium (I would cancel Netflix before this), Perplexity has earned a top spot in my toolkit. It blends AI and real-time web search into one seamless, research-driven platform that saves time and improves the quality of information I rely on every day.

Thomson Reuters CEO: Legal Profession Faces “Biggest Disruption in Its History”from AI — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Thomson Reuters President and CEO Steve Hasker believes the legal profession is experiencing “the biggest disruption … in its history” due to generative and agentic artificial intelligence, fundamentally rewriting how legal work products are created for the first time in more than 300 years.

Speaking to legal technology reporters during ILTACON, the International Legal Technology Association’s annual conference, Hasker outlined his company’s ambitious goal to become “the most innovative company” in the legal tech sector while navigating what he described as unprecedented technological change affecting a profession that has remained largely unchanged since its origins in London tea houses centuries ago.

Legal tech hackathon challenges students to rethink access to justice — from the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Auckland Law School
In a 24-hour sprint, student teams designed innovative tools to make legal and social support more accessible.

The winning team comprised of students of computer science, law, psychology and physics. They developed a privacy-first legal assistant powered by AI that helps people understand their legal rights without needing to navigate dense legal language.

Teaching How To ‘Think Like a Lawyer’ Revisited — from abovethelaw.com by Stephen Embry
GenAI gives the concept of training law students to think like a lawyer a whole new meaning.

Law Schools
These insights have particular urgency for legal education. Indeed, most of Cowen’s criticisms and suggested changes need to be front and center for law school leaders. It’s naïve to think that law student and lawyers aren’t going to use GenAI tools in virtually every aspect of their professional and personal lives. Rather than avoiding the subject or worse yet trying to stop use of these tools, law schools should make GenAI tools a fundamental part of research, writing and drafting training.

They need to focus not on memorization but on the critical thinking skills beginning lawyers used to get in the on-the-job training guild type system. As I discussed, that training came from repetitive and often tedious work that developed experienced lawyers who could recognize patterns and solutions based on the exposure to similar situations. But much of that repetitive and tedious work may go away in a GenAI world.

The Role of Adjunct Professors
But to do this, law schools need to better partner with actual practicing lawyers who can serve as adjunct professors. Law schools need to do away with the notion that adjuncts are second-class teachers.

It’s a New Dawn In Legal Tech: From Woodstock to ILTACON (And Beyond) — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

As someone who has covered legal tech for 30 years, I cannot remember there ever being a time such as this, when the energy and excitement are raging, driven by generative AI and a new era of innovation and new ideas of the possible.
…
But this year was different. Wandering the exhibit hall, getting product briefings from vendors, talking with attendees, it was impossible to ignore the fundamental shift happening in legal technology. Gen AI isn’t just creating new products – it is spawning entirely new categories of products that truly are reshaping how legal work gets done.

Agentic AI is the buzzword of 2025 and agentic systems were everywhere at ILTACON, promising to streamline workflows across all areas of legal practice. But, perhaps more importantly, these tools are also beginning to address the business side of running a law practice – from client intake and billing to marketing and practice management. The scope of transformation is now beginning to extend beyond the practice of law into the business of law.
…
Largely missing from this gathering were solo practitioners, small firm lawyers, legal aid organizations, and access-to-justice advocates – the very people who stand to benefit most from the democratizing potential of AI.
…
However, now more than ever, the innovations we are seeing in legal tech have the power to level the playing field, to give smaller practitioners access to tools and capabilities that were once prohibitively expensive. If these technologies remain priced for and marketed primarily to Big Law, we will have succeeded only in widening the justice gap rather than closing it.

How AI is Transforming Deposition Review: A LegalTech Q&A — from jdsupra.com

Thanks to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence – particularly in semantic search, multimodal models, and natural language processing – new legaltech solutions are emerging to streamline and accelerate deposition review. What once took hours or days of manual analysis now can be accomplished in minutes, with greater accuracy and efficiency than possible with manual review.

From Skepticism to Trust: A Playbook for AI Change Management in Law Firms — from jdsupra.com by Scott Cohen

Historically, lawyers have been slow adopters of emerging technologies, and with good reason. Legal work is high stakes, deeply rooted in precedent, and built on individual judgment. AI, especially the new generation of agentic AI (systems that not only generate output but initiate tasks, make decisions, and operate semi-autonomously), represents a fundamental shift in how legal work gets done. This shift naturally leads to caution as it challenges long-held assumptions about lawyer workflows and several aspects of their role in the legal process.

The path forward is not to push harder or faster, but smarter. Firms need to take a structured approach that builds trust through transparency, context, training, and measurement of success. This article provides a five-part playbook for law firm leaders navigating AI change management, especially in environments where skepticism is high and reputational risk is even higher.

ILTACON 2025: The vendor briefings – Agents, ecosystems and the next stage of maturity — from legaltechnology.com by Caroline Hill

This year’s ILTACON in Washington was heavy on AI, but the conversation with vendors has shifted. Legal IT Insider’s briefings weren’t about potential use cases or speculative roadmaps. Instead, they focused on how AI is now being embedded into the tools lawyers use every day — and, crucially, how those tools are starting to talk to each other.

Taken together, they point to an inflection point, where agentic workflows, data integration, and open ecosystems define the agenda. But it’s important amidst the latest buzzwords to remember that agents are only as good as the tools they have to work with, and AI only as good as its underlying data. Also, as we talk about autonomous AI, end users are still struggling with cloud implementations and infrastructure challenges, and need vendors to be business partners that help them to make progress at speed.

Harvey’s roadmap is all about expanding its surface area — connecting to systems like iManage, LexisNexis, and more recently publishing giant Wolters Kluwer — so that a lawyer can issue a single query and get synthesised, contextualised answers directly within their workflow. Weinberg said: “What we’re trying to do is get all of the surface area of all of the context that a lawyer needs to complete a task and we’re expanding the product surface so you can enter a search, search all resources, and apply that to the document automatically.”

The common thread: no one is talking about AI in isolation anymore. It’s about orchestration — pulling together multiple data sources into a workflow that actually reflects how lawyers practice.

5 Pitfalls Of Delaying Automation In High-Volume Litigation And Claims — from jdsupra.com

Why You Can’t Afford to Wait to Adopt AI Tools that have Plaintiffs Moving Faster than Ever
Just as photocopiers shifted law firm operations in the early 1970s and cloud computing transformed legal document management in the early 2000s, AI automation tools are altering the current legal landscape—enabling litigation teams to instantly structure unstructured data, zero in on key arguments in seconds, and save hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of manual work.

Your Firm’s AI Policy Probably Sucks: Why Law Firms Need Education, Not Rules — from jdsupra.com

The Floor, Not the Ceiling
Smart firms need to flip their entire approach. Instead of dictating which AI tools lawyers must use, leadership should set a floor for acceptable use and then get out of the way.

The floor is simple: no free versions for client work. Free tools are free because users are the product. Client data becomes training data. Confidentiality gets compromised. The firm loses any ability to audit or control how information flows. This isn’t about control; it’s about professional responsibility.

But setting the floor is only the first step. Firms must provide paid, enterprise versions of AI tools that lawyers actually want to use. Not some expensive legal tech platform that promises AI features but delivers complicated workflows. Real AI tools. The same ones lawyers are already using secretly, but with enterprise security, data protection, and proper access controls.

Education must be practical and continuous. Single training sessions don’t work. AI tools evolve weekly. New capabilities emerge constantly. Lawyers need ongoing support to experiment, learn, and share discoveries. This means regular workshops, internal forums for sharing prompts and techniques, and recognition for innovative uses.

The education investment pays off immediately. Lawyers who understand AI use it more effectively. They catch its mistakes. They know when to verify outputs. They develop specialized prompts for legal work. They become force multipliers, not just for themselves but for their entire teams.

Back to School in the AI Era: Why Students Are Rewriting Your Lesson Plan — from linkedin.com by Hailey Wilson

As a new academic year begins, many instructors, trainers, and program leaders are bracing for familiar challenges—keeping learners engaged, making complex material accessible, and preparing students for real-world application.

But there’s a quiet shift happening in classrooms and online courses everywhere.

This fall, it’s not the syllabus that’s guiding the learning experience—it’s the conversation between the learner and an AI tool.

From bootcamp to bust: How AI is upending the software development industry — from reuters.com by Anna Tong; via Paul Fain
Coding bootcamps have been a mainstay in Silicon Valley for more than a decade. Now, as AI eliminates the kind of entry-level roles for which they trained people, they’re disappearing.

Coding bootcamps have been a Silicon Valley mainstay for over a decade, offering an important pathway for non-traditional candidates to get six-figure engineering jobs. But coding bootcamp operators, students and investors tell Reuters that this path is rapidly disappearing, thanks in large part to AI.

“Coding bootcamps were already on their way out, but AI has been the nail in the coffin,” said Allison Baum Gates, a general partner at venture capital fund SemperVirens, who was an early employee at bootcamp pioneer General Assembly.

Gates said bootcamps were already in decline due to market saturation, evolving employer demand and market forces like growth in international hiring.

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