Farewell to Traditional Universities | What AI Has in Store for Education

Premiered Jan 16, 2026

Description:

What if the biggest change in education isn’t a new app… but the end of the university monopoly on credibility?

Jensen Huang has framed AI as a platform shift—an industrial revolution that turns intelligence into infrastructure. And when intelligence becomes cheap, personal, and always available, education stops being a place you go… and becomes a system that follows you. The question isn’t whether universities will disappear. The question is whether the old model—high cost, slow updates, one-size-fits-all—can survive a world where every student can have a private tutor, a lab partner, and a curriculum designer on demand.

This video explores what AI has in store for education—and why traditional universities may need to reinvent themselves fast.

In this video you’ll discover:

  • How AI tutors could deliver personalized learning at scale
  • Why credentials may shift from “degrees” to proof-of-skill portfolios
  • What happens when the “middle” of studying becomes automated
  • How universities could evolve: research hubs, networks, and high-trust credentialing
  • The risks: cheating, dependency, bias, and widening inequality
  • The 3 skills that become priceless when information is everywhere: judgment, curiosity, and responsibility

From DSC:
There appears to be another, similar video, but with a different date and length of the video. So I’m including this other recording as well here:


The End of Universities as We Know Them: What AI Is Bringing

Premiered Jan 27, 2026

What if universities don’t “disappear”… but lose their monopoly on learning, credentials, and opportunity?

AI is turning education into something radically different: personal, instant, adaptive, and always available. When every student can have a 24/7 tutor, a writing coach, a coding partner, and a study plan designed specifically for them, the old model—one professor, one curriculum, one pace for everyone—starts to look outdated. And the biggest disruption isn’t the classroom. It’s the credential. Because in an AI world, proof of skill can become more valuable than a piece of paper.

This video explores the end of universities as we know them: what AI is bringing, what will break, what will survive, and what replaces the traditional path.

In this video you’ll discover:

  • Why AI tutoring could outperform one-size-fits-all lectures
  • How “degrees” may shift into skill proof: portfolios, projects, and verified competency
  • What happens when the “middle” of studying becomes automated
  • How universities may evolve: research hubs, networks, high-trust credentialing
  • The dark side: cheating, dependency, inequality, and biased evaluation
  • The new advantage: judgment, creativity, and responsibility in a world of instant answers
 

The Learning and Employment Records (LER) Report for 2026: Building the infrastructure between learning and work — from smartresume.com; with thanks to Paul Fain for this resource

Executive Summary (excerpt)

This report documents a clear transition now underway: LERs are moving from small experiments to systems people and organizations expect to rely on. Adoption remains early and uneven, but the forces reshaping the ecosystem are no longer speculative. Federal policy signals, state planning cycles, standards maturation, and employer behavior are aligning in ways that suggest 2026 will mark a shift from exploration to execution.

Across interviews with federal leaders, state CIOs, standards bodies, and ecosystem builders, a consistent theme emerged: the traditional model—where institutions control learning and employment records—no longer fits how people move through education and work. In its place, a new model is being actively designed—one in which individuals hold portable, verifiable records that systems can trust without centralizing control.

Most states are not yet operating this way. But planning timelines, RFP language, and federal signals indicate that many will begin building toward this model in early 2026.

As the ecosystem matures, another insight becomes unavoidable: records alone are not enough. Value emerges only when trusted records can be interpreted through shared skill languages, reused across contexts, and embedded into the systems and marketplaces where decisions are made.

Learning and Employment Records are not a product category. They are a data layer—one that reshapes how learning, work, and opportunity connect over time.

This report is written for anyone seeking to understand how LERs are beginning to move from concept to practice. Whether readers are new to the space or actively exploring implementation, the report focuses on observable signals, emerging patterns, and the practical conditions required to move from experimentation toward durable infrastructure.

 

“The building blocks for a global, interoperable skills ecosystem are already in place. As education and workforce alignment accelerates, the path toward trusted, machine-readable credentials is clear. The next phase depends on credentials that carry value across institutions, industries, states, and borders; credentials that move with learners wherever their education and careers take them. The question now isn’t whether to act, but how quickly we move.”

– Curtiss Barnes, Chief Executive Officer, 1EdTech

 


The above item was from Paul Fain’s recent posting, which includes the following excerpt:

SmartResume just published a guide for making sense of this rapidly expanding landscape. The LER Ecosystem Report was produced in partnership with AACRAO, Credential Engine, 1EdTech, HR Open Standards, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. It was based on interviews and feedback gathered over three years from 100+ leaders across education, workforce, government, standards bodies, and tech providers.

The tools are available now to create the sort of interoperable ecosystem that can make talent marketplaces a reality, the report argues. Meanwhile, federal policy moves and bipartisan attention to LERs are accelerating action at the state level.

“For state leaders, this creates a practical inflection point,” says the report. “LERs are shifting from an innovation discussion to an infrastructure planning conversation.”

 
 

Global list of over 100 L&D conferences in 2026 — from donaldhtaylor.co.uk by Don Taylor

I’m a firm believer in conferences. This isn’t just because I have chaired the Learning Technologies Conference in London since 2000. It’s because they are invaluable in sustaining our community. So many in Learning and Development work alone or in small teams, that building and maintaining personal contacts is crucial.For a number of years, I have kept a personal list of the Learning and Development conferences running internationally. This year, I thought it would be helpful to  share it.

 

 
 
 

AI working competency is now a graduation requirement at Purdue [Pacton] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems


AI Has Landed in Education: Now What? — from learningfuturesdigest.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman

Here’s what’s shaped the AI-education landscape in the last month:

  • The AI Speed Trap is [still] here: AI adoption in L&D is basically won (87%)—but it’s being used to ship faster, not learn better (84% prioritising speed), scaling “more of the same” at pace.
  • AI tutors risk a “pedagogy of passivity”: emerging evidence suggests tutoring bots can reduce cognitive friction and pull learners down the ICAP spectrum—away from interactive/constructive learning toward efficient consumption.
  • Singapore + India are building what the West lacks: they’re treating AI as national learning infrastructure—for resilience (Singapore) and access + language inclusion (India)—while Western systems remain fragmented and reactive.
  • Agentic AI is the next pivot: early signs show a shift from AI as a content engine to AI as a learning partner—with UConn using agents to remove barriers so learners can participate more fully in shared learning.
  • Moodle’s AI stance sends two big signals: the traditional learning ecosystem in fragmenting, and the concept of “user sovereignty” over by AI is emerging.

Four strategies for implementing custom AIs that help students learn, not outsource — from educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au by Kria Coleman, Matthew Clemson, Laura Crocco and Samantha Clarke; via Derek Bruff

For Cogniti to be taken seriously, it needs to be woven into the structure of your unit and its delivery, both in class and on Canvas, rather than left on the side. This article shares practical strategies for implementing Cogniti in your teaching so that students:

  • understand the context and purpose of the agent,
  • know how to interact with it effectively,
  • perceive its value as a learning tool over any other available AI chatbots, and
  • engage in reflection and feedback.

In this post, we discuss how to introduce and integrate Cogniti agents into the learning environment so students understand their context, interact effectively, and see their value as customised learning companions.

In this post, we share four strategies to help introduce and integrate Cogniti in your teaching so that students understand their context, interact effectively, and see their value as customised learning companions.


Collection: Teaching with Custom AI Chatbots — from teaching.virginia.edu; via Derek Bruff
The default behaviors of popular AI chatbots don’t always align with our teaching goals. This collection explores approaches to designing AI chatbots for particular pedagogical purposes.

Example/excerpt:



 

Beyond Infographics: How to Use Nano Banana to *Actually* Support Learning — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
Six evidence-based use cases to try in Google’s latest image-generating AI tool

While it’s true that Nano Banana generates better infographics than other AI models, the conversation has so far massively under-sold what’s actually different and valuable about this tool for those of us who design learning experiences.

What this means for our workflow:

Instead of the traditional “commission ? wait ? tweak ? approve ? repeat” cycle, Nano Banana enables an iterative, rapid-cycle design process where you can:

  • Sketch an idea and see it refined in minutes.
  • Test multiple visual metaphors for the same concept without re-briefing a designer.
  • Build 10-image storyboards with perfect consistency by specifying the constraints once, not manually editing each frame.
  • Implement evidence-based strategies (contrasting cases, worked examples, observational learning) that are usually too labour-intensive to produce at scale.

This shift—from “image generation as decoration” to “image generation as instructional scaffolding”—is what makes Nano Banana uniquely useful for the 10 evidence-based strategies below.

 


 


 


Three Years from GPT-3 to Gemini 3 — from oneusefulthing.org by Ethan Mollick
From chatbots to agents

Three years ago, we were impressed that a machine could write a poem about otters. Less than 1,000 days later, I am debating statistical methodology with an agent that built its own research environment. The era of the chatbot is turning into the era of the digital coworker. To be very clear, Gemini 3 isn’t perfect, and it still needs a manager who can guide and check it. But it suggests that “human in the loop” is evolving from “human who fixes AI mistakes” to “human who directs AI work.” And that may be the biggest change since the release of ChatGPT.




Results May Vary — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton, PhD
On Custom Instructions with GenAI Tools….

I’m sharing today about custom instructions and my use of them across several AI tools (paid versions of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude). I want to highlight what I’m doing, how it’s going, and solicit from readers to share in the comments some of their custom instructions that they find helpful.

I’ve been in a few conversations lately that remind me that not everyone knows about them, even some of the seasoned folks around GenAI and how you might set them up to better support your work. And, of course, they are, like all things GenAI, highly imperfect!

I’ll include and discuss each one below, but if you want to keep abreast of my custom instructions, I’ll be placing them here as I adjust and update them so folks can see the changes over time.

 


Gen AI Is Going Mainstream: Here’s What’s Coming Next — from joshbersin.com by Josh Bersin

I just completed nearly 60,000 miles of travel across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East meeting with hundred of companies to discuss their AI strategies. While every company’s maturity is different, one thing is clear: AI as a business tool has arrived: it’s real and the use-cases are growing.

A new survey by Wharton shows that 46% of business leaders use Gen AI daily and 80% use it weekly. And among these users, 72% are measuring ROI and 74% report a positive return. HR, by the way, is the #3 department in use cases, only slightly behind IT and Finance.

What are companies getting out of all this? Productivity. The #1 use case, by far, is what we call “stage 1” usage – individual productivity. 

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From DSC:
Josh writes: “Many of our large clients are now implementing AI-native learning systems and seeing 30-40% reduction in staff with vast improvements in workforce enablement.

While I get the appeal (and ROI) from management’s and shareholders’ perspective, this represents a growing concern for employment and people’s ability to earn a living. 

And while I highly respect Josh and his work through the years, I disagree that we’re over the problems with AI and how people are using it: 

Two years ago the NYT was trying to frighten us with stories of AI acting as a romance partner. Well those stories are over, and thanks to a $Trillion (literally) of capital investment in infrastructure, engineering, and power plants, this stuff is reasonably safe.

Those stories are just beginning…they’re not close to being over. 


“… imagine a world where there’s no separation between learning and assessment…” — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton, Ph.D. and Tawnya Means
An interview with Tawnya Means

So let’s imagine a world where there’s no separation between learning and assessment: it’s ongoing. There’s always assessment, always learning, and they’re tied together. Then we can ask: what is the role of the human in that world? What is it that AI can’t do?

Imagine something like that in higher ed. There could be tutoring or skill-based work happening outside of class, and then relationship-based work happening inside of class, whether online, in person, or some hybrid mix.

The aspects of learning that don’t require relational context could be handled by AI, while the human parts remain intact. For example, I teach strategy and strategic management. I teach people how to talk with one another about the operation and function of a business. I can help students learn to be open to new ideas, recognize when someone pushes back out of fear of losing power, or draw from my own experience in leading a business and making future-oriented decisions.

But the technical parts such as the frameworks like SWOT analysis, the mechanics of comparing alternative viewpoints in a boardroom—those could be managed through simulations or reports that receive immediate feedback from AI. The relational aspects, the human mentoring, would still happen with me as their instructor.

Part 2 of their interview is here:


 

How Coworking Spaces Are Becoming The Learning Ecosystems Of The Future — from hrfuture.net

What if your workspace helped you level up your career? Coworking spaces are becoming learning hubs where skills grow, ideas connect, and real-world education fits seamlessly into the workday.

Continuous learning has become a cornerstone of professional longevity, and flexible workspaces already encourage it through workshops, talks, and mentoring. Their true potential, however, may lie in becoming centers of industry-focused education that help professionals stay adaptable in a rapidly changing world of work.
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What if forward-thinking workspaces and coworking centers became hubs of lifelong learning, integrating job-relevant training with accessible, real-world education?

For coworking operators, this raises important questions: Which types of learning thrive best in these environments, and how much do the design and layout of a space influence how people learn?

By exploring these questions and combining innovative programs with cutting-edge technology aligned to the future workforce, could coworking spaces ultimately become the classrooms of tomorrow?

 

Breaking News: Law Firm’s AI Pilot Lets New Lawyers Step Away from Billable Hours — from jdjournal.com

In a groundbreaking move that may redefine how law firms integrate technology training into daily practice, Ropes & Gray LLP has introduced a new pilot program allowing its first-year associates to dedicate a significant portion of their work hours to artificial intelligence (AI) learning—without the pressure of billing those hours to clients.

The initiative, called “TrAIlblazers,” marks one of the first formal attempts by a major law firm to give attorneys credit toward their billable-hour requirements for time spent exploring and developing AI skills. The firm hopes the move will both prepare young lawyers for a rapidly evolving profession and signal a new era of flexibility in how law firms evaluate performance.

 

“OpenAI’s Atlas: the End of Online Learning—or Just the Beginning?” [Hardman] + other items re: AI in our LE’s

OpenAI’s Atlas: the End of Online Learning—or Just the Beginning? — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr. Philippa Hardman

My take is this: in all of the anxiety lies a crucial and long-overdue opportunity to deliver better learning experiences. Precisely because Atlas perceives the same context in the same moment as you, it can transform learning into a process aligned with core neuro-scientific principles—including active retrieval, guided attention, adaptive feedback and context-dependent memory formation.

Perhaps in Atlas we have a browser that for the first time isn’t just a portal to information, but one which can become a co-participant in active cognitive engagement—enabling iterative practice, reflective thinking, and real-time scaffolding as you move through challenges and ideas online.

With this in mind, I put together 10 use cases for Atlas for you to try for yourself.

6. Retrieval Practice
What:
Pulling information from memory drives retention better than re-reading.
Why: Practice testing delivers medium-to-large effects (Adesope et al., 2017).
Try: Open a document with your previous notes. Ask Atlas for a mixed activity set: “Quiz me on the Krebs cycle—give me a near-miss, high-stretch MCQ, then a fill-in-the-blank, then ask me to explain it to a teen.”
Atlas uses its browser memory to generate targeted questions from your actual study materials, supporting spaced, varied retrieval.




From DSC:
A quick comment. I appreciate these ideas and approaches from Katarzyna and Rita. I do think that someone is going to want to be sure that the AI models/platforms/tools are given up-to-date information and updated instructions — i.e., any new procedures, steps to take, etc. Perhaps I’m missing the boat here, but an internal AI platform is going to need to have access to up-to-date information and instructions.


 

There is no God Tier video model — from downes.ca by Stephen Downes

From DSC:
Stephen has some solid reflections and asks some excellent questions in this posting, including:

The question is: how do we optimize an AI to support learning? Will one model be enough? Or do we need different models for different learners in different scenarios?


A More Human University: The Role of AI in Learning — from er.educause.edu by Robert Placido
Far from heralding the collapse of higher education, artificial intelligence offers a transformative opportunity to scale meaningful, individualized learning experiences across diverse classrooms.

The narrative surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education is often grim. We hear dire predictions of an “impending collapse,” fueled by fears of rampant cheating, the erosion of critical thinking, and the obsolescence of the human educator.Footnote1 This dystopian view, however, is a failure of imagination. It mistakes the death rattle of an outdated pedagogical model for the death of learning itself. The truth is far more hopeful: AI is not an asteroid coming for higher education. It is a catalyst that can finally empower us to solve our oldest, most intractable problem: the inability to scale deep, engaged, and truly personalized learning.


Claude for Life Sciences — from anthropic.com

Increasing the rate of scientific progress is a core part of Anthropic’s public benefit mission.

We are focused on building the tools to allow researchers to make new discoveries – and eventually, to allow AI models to make these discoveries autonomously.

Until recently, scientists typically used Claude for individual tasks, like writing code for statistical analysis or summarizing papers. Pharmaceutical companies and others in industry also use it for tasks across the rest of their business, like sales, to fund new research. Now, our goal is to make Claude capable of supporting the entire process, from early discovery through to translation and commercialization.

To do this, we’re rolling out several improvements that aim to make Claude a better partner for those who work in the life sciences, including researchers, clinical coordinators, and regulatory affairs managers.


AI as an access tool for neurodiverse and international staff — from timeshighereducation.com by Vanessa Mar-Molinero
Used transparently and ethically, GenAI can level the playing field and lower the cognitive load of repetitive tasks for admin staff, student support and teachers

Where AI helps without cutting academic corners
When framed as accessibility and quality enhancement, AI can support staff to complete standard tasks with less friction. However, while it supports clarity, consistency and inclusion, generative AI (GenAI) does not replace disciplinary expertise, ethical judgement or the teacher–student relationship. These are ways it can be put to effective use:

  • Drafting and tone calibration:
  • Language scaffolding:
  • Structure and templates: ..
  • Summarise and prioritise:
  • Accessibility by default:
  • Idea generation for pedagogy:
  • Translation and cultural mediation:

Beyond learning design: supporting pedagogical innovation in response to AI — from timeshighereducation.com by Charlotte von Essen
To avoid an unwinnable game of catch-up with technology, universities must rethink pedagogical improvement that goes beyond scaling online learning


The Sleep of Liberal Arts Produces AI — from aiedusimplified.substack.com by Lance Eaton, Ph.D.
A keynote at the AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium Conference

This past weekend, I had the honor to be the keynote speaker at a really fantstistic conferece, AI and the Liberal Arts Symposium at Connecticut College. I had shared a bit about this before with my interview with Lori Looney. It was an incredible conference, thoughtfully composed with a lot of things to chew on and think about.

It was also an entirely brand new talk in a slightly different context from many of my other talks and workshops. It was something I had to build entirely from the ground up. It reminded me in some ways of last year’s “What If GenAI Is a Nothingburger”.

It was a real challenge and one I’ve been working on and off for months, trying to figure out the right balance. It’s a work I feel proud of because of the balancing act I try to navigate. So, as always, it’s here for others to read and engage with. And, of course, here is the slide deck as well (with CC license).

 

“A new L&D operating system for the AI Era?” [Hardman] + other items re: AI in our learning ecosystems

From 70/20/10 to 90/10 — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
A new L&D operating system for the AI Era?

This week I want to share a hypothesis I’m increasingly convinced of: that we are entering an age of the 90/10 model of L&D.

90/10 is a model where roughly 90% of “training” is delivered by AI coaches as daily performance support, and 10% of training is dedicated to developing complex and critical skills via high-touch, human-led learning experiences.

Proponents of 90/10 argue that the model isn’t about learning less, but about learning smarter by defining all jobs to be done as one of the following:

  • Delegate (the dead skills): Tasks that can be offloaded to AI.
  • Co-Create (the 90%): Tasks which well-defined AI agents can augment and help humans to perform optimally.
  • Facilitate (the 10%): Tasks which require high-touch, human-led learning to develop.

So if AI at work is now both real and material, the natural question for L&D is: how do we design for it? The short answer is to stop treating learning as an event and start treating it as a system.



My daughter’s generation expects to learn with AI, not pretend it doesn’t exist, because they know employers expect AI fluency and because AI will be ever-present in their adult lives.

— Jenny Maxell

The above quote was taken from this posting.


Unlocking Young Minds: How Gamified AI Learning Tools Inspire Fun, Personalized, and Powerful Education for Children in 2025 — from techgenyz.com by Sreyashi Bhattacharya

Table of Contents

Highlight

  • Gamified AI Learning Tools personalize education by adapting the difficulty and content to each child’s pace, fostering confidence and mastery.
  • Engaging & Fun: Gamified elements like quests, badges, and stories keep children motivated and enthusiastic.
  • Safe & Inclusive: Attention to equity, privacy, and cultural context ensures responsible and accessible learning.

How to test GenAI’s impact on learning — from timeshighereducation.com by Thibault Schrepel
Rather than speculate on GenAI’s promise or peril, Thibault Schrepel suggests simple teaching experiments to uncover its actual effects

Generative AI in higher education is a source of both fear and hype. Some predict the end of memory, others a revolution in personalised learning. My two-year classroom experiment points to a more modest reality: Artificial intelligence (AI) changes some skills, leaves others untouched and forces us to rethink the balance.

This indicates that the way forward is to test, not speculate. My results may not match yours, and that is precisely the point. Here are simple activities any teacher can use to see what AI really does in their own classroom.

4. Turn AI into a Socratic partner
Instead of being the sole interrogator, let AI play the role of tutor, client or judge. Have students use AI to question them, simulate cross-examination or push back on weak arguments. New “study modes” now built into several foundation models make this kind of tutoring easy to set up. Professors with more technical skills can go further, design their own GPTs or fine-tuned models trained on course content and let students interact directly with them. The point is the practice it creates. Students learn that questioning a machine is part of learning to think like a professional.


Assessment tasks that support human skills — from timeshighereducation.com by Amir Ghapanchi and Afrooz Purarjomandlangrudi
Assignments that focus on exploration, analysis and authenticity offer a road map for university assessment that incorporates AI while retaining its rigour and human elements

Rethinking traditional formats

1. From essay to exploration 
When ChatGPT can generate competent academic essays in seconds, the traditional format’s dominance looks less secure as an assessment task. The future lies in moving from essays as knowledge reproduction to assessments that emphasise exploration and curation. Instead of asking students to write about a topic, challenge them to use artificial intelligence to explore multiple perspectives, compare outputs and critically evaluate what emerges.

Example: A management student asks an AI tool to generate several risk plans, then critiques the AI’s assumptions and identifies missing risks.


What your students are thinking about artificial intelligence — from timeshighereducation.com by Florencia Moore and Agostina Arbia
GenAI has been quickly adopted by students, but the consequences of using it as a shortcut could be grave. A study into how students think about and use GenAI offers insights into how teaching might adapt

However, when asked how AI negatively impacts their academic development, 29 per cent noted a “weakening or deterioration of intellectual abilities due to AI overuse”. The main concern cited was the loss of “mental exercise” and soft skills such as writing, creativity and reasoning.

The boundary between the human and the artificial does not seem so easy to draw, but as the poet Antonio Machado once said: “Traveller, there is no path; the path is made by walking.”


Jelly Beans for Grapes: How AI Can Erode Students’ Creativity — from edsurge.com by Thomas David Moore

There is nothing new about students trying to get one over on their teachers — there are probably cuneiform tablets about it — but when students use AI to generate what Shannon Vallor, philosopher of technology at the University of Edinburgh, calls a “truth-shaped word collage,” they are not only gaslighting the people trying to teach them, they are gaslighting themselves. In the words of Tulane professor Stan Oklobdzija, asking a computer to write an essay for you is the equivalent of “going to the gym and having robots lift the weights for you.”


Deloitte will make Claude available to 470,000 people across its global network — from anthropic.com

As part of the collaboration, Deloitte will establish a Claude Center of Excellence with trained specialists who will develop implementation frameworks, share leading practices across deployments, and provide ongoing technical support to create the systems needed to move AI pilots to production at scale. The collaboration represents Anthropic’s largest enterprise AI deployment to date, available to more than 470,000 Deloitte people.

Deloitte and Anthropic are co-creating a formal certification program to train and certify 15,000 of its professionals on Claude. These practitioners will help support Claude implementations across Deloitte’s network and Deloitte’s internal AI transformation efforts.


How AI Agents are finally delivering on the promise of Everboarding: driving retention when it counts most — from premierconstructionnews.com

Everboarding flips this model. Rather than ending after orientation, everboarding provides ongoing, role-specific training and support throughout the employee journey. It adapts to evolving responsibilities, reinforces standards, and helps workers grow into new roles. For high-turnover, high-pressure environments like retail, it’s a practical solution to a persistent challenge.

AI agents will be instrumental in the success of everboarding initiatives; they can provide a much more tailored training and development process for each individual employee, keeping track of which training modules may need to be completed, or where staff members need or want to develop further. This personalisation helps staff to feel not only more satisfied with their current role, but also guides them on the right path to progress in their individual careers.

Digital frontline apps are also ideal for everboarding. They offer bite-sized training that staff can complete anytime, whether during quiet moments on shift or in real time on the job, all accessible from their mobile devices.


TeachLM: insights from a new LLM fine-tuned for teaching & learning — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
Six key takeaways, including what the research tells us about how well AI performs as an instructional designer

As I and many others have pointed out in recent months, LLMs are great assistants but very ineffective teachers. Despite the rise of “educational LLMs” with specialised modes (e.g. Anthropic’s Learning Mode, OpenAI’s Study Mode, Google’s Guided Learning) AI typically eliminates the productive struggle, open exploration and natural dialogue that are fundamental to learning.

This week, Polygence, in collaboration with Stanford University researcher Prof Dora Demszky. published a first-of-its-kind research on a new model — TeachLM — built to address this gap.

In this week’s blog post, I deep dive what the research found and share the six key findings — including reflections on how well TeachLM performs on instructional design.


The Dangers of using AI to Grade — from marcwatkins.substack.com by Marc Watkins
Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains

AI as an assessment tool represents an existential threat to education because no matter how you try and establish guardrails or best practices around how it is employed, using the technology in place of an educator ultimately cedes human judgment to a machine-based process. It also devalues the entire enterprise of education and creates a situation where the only way universities can add value to education is by further eliminating costly human labor.

For me, the purpose of higher education is about human development, critical thinking, and the transformative experience of having your ideas taken seriously by another human being. That’s not something we should be in a rush to outsource to a machine.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian