Last updated on 1/31/26

A powerful, global, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based, next-generation, lifelong learning platform -- meant to help people reinvent themselves quickly, safely, cost-effectively, conveniently, and consistently. And speaking of people, this new platform will require -- and will rely upon -- human beings to create it as well as to drive its effectiveness.

***

And by the way, the AI-based systems out there will be constantly pulling from many sources to identify which jobs organizations are hiring for and which skills are important for those jobs:

***

In the future, the lifelong ownership of the learning-related records and credentials will belong to the individual learners themselves. They will be the ones who control who else can access these records.

Learners' profiles will be populated by traditional institutions of higher education, corporate training/L&D groups, vendors like LinkedIn Learning, as well as by MOOCs, bootcamps, industry experts, apprenticeships/internships, and others.

Some recent items/quotes/ideas to consider:

Farewell to Traditional Universities What AI Has in Store for Education [Jensen Huang | 1/16/26]

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

Farewell to Traditional Universities What AI Has in Store for Education [Jensen Huang | 1/27/26]

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 [1/29/26]

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.”

FutureFit AI— helping build reskilling, demand-driven, employment, sector-based, and future-fit pathways, powered by AI; [1/29/26]

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

The platform is powered by FutureFit AI, which is contributing the skills-matching infrastructure and navigation layer. Jobseekers get personalized recommendations for best-fit job roles as well as education and training options—including internships—that can help them break into specific careers. The project also includes a focus on providing support students need to complete their training, including scholarships and help with childcare and transportation.

 

From LinkedIn by Robert Gibson [1/20/26]

A multi-year history of how we got here
(i.e., relevant postings/pieces of the puzzle) >>

What does the vision entail?

• A new, global, collaborative learning platform that offers more choice, more control to learners of all ages – 24x7 – and could become the organization that futurist Thomas Frey discusses here with Business Insider:

"I've been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven't heard of yet," Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider.

• A learner-centered platform that is enabled by – and reliant upon – human beings but is backed up by a powerful suite of technologies that work together in order to help people reinvent themselves quickly, conveniently, and extremely cost-effectively
• A customizable learning environment that will offer up-to-date streams of regularly curated content (i.e., microlearning) as well as engaging learning experiences
• Along these lines, a lifelong learner can opt to receive an RSS feed on a particular topic until they master that concept; periodic quizzes (i.e., spaced repetition) determine that mastery. Once mastered, the system will ask the learner as to whether they still want to receive that particular stream of content or not.
• A Netflix-like interface to peruse and select plugins to extend the functionality of the core product
• An AI-backed system of analyzing employment trends and opportunities will highlight those courses and “streams of content” that will help someone obtain the most in-demand skills
• A system that tracks learning and, via Blockchain-based technologies, feeds all completed learning modules/courses into learners’ web-based learner profiles
• A learning platform that provides customized, personalized recommendation lists – based upon the learner’s goals
• A platform that delivers customized, personalized learning within a self-directed course
(meant for those content creators who want to deliver more sophisticated courses/modules while moving people through the relevant Zones of Proximal Development)
• Notifications and/or inspirational quotes will be available upon request to help provide motivation, encouragement, and accountability – helping learners establish habits of continual, lifelong-based learning
• An online-based marketplace, matching learners with resources

Ideally, the learner is using two displays simultaneously:

• A Subject Matter Expert (SME) giving a talk or making a presentation on any given topic
• A need to display multiple things going on at once, such as:
• The SME(s)
• An application or multiple applications that the SME(s) are using
• Content/resources that learners are submitting in real-time (think Bluescape, T1V, Prysm, other)
• The ability to annotate on top of the application(s) and point to things w/in the app(s)
• Media being used to support the presentation such as pictures, graphics, graphs, videos, simulations, animations, audio, links to other resources, GPS coordinates for an app such as Google Earth, other
• Other attendees (think Google Hangouts, Skype, Polycom, or other videoconferencing tools)
• An (optional) representation of the Personal Assistant (such as today’s Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, etc.) that’s being employed via the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Voice-based commands to drive the system (via Natural Language Processing (NLP))
• Language translation (using techs similar to what’s being used in Translate One2One, an earpiece powered by IBM Watson)
• Speech-to-text capabilities to provide real-time closed captioning and transcriptions -- as well as for use w/ chatbots, messaging, inserting discussion board postings
• Text-to-speech capabilities as an assistive technology and also for everyone to be able to be mobile while listening to what’s been typed
• Chatbots
• For learning how to use the system
• For asking questions of – and addressing any issues with – the organization owning the system (credentials, payments, obtaining technical support, etc.)
• For asking questions within a course to obtain information -- such as asking questions of a historical figure
• As many profiles as needed per household
• Similar to asking questions of a chatbot, we will be able to use holographic storytelling where learners can ask questions of a hologram (examples here and here)
• The ability to use the learner's webcam to take pictures of equations in order to get instant feedback and/or links to other resources
• Polling
• (Optional) Machine-to-machine-based communications to automatically launch the correct profile when the system is initiated (from one’s smartphone, laptop, workstation, and/or tablet to a receiver for the system)
• (Optional) Voice recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
• (Optional) Facial recognition to efficiently launch the desired profile
• (Optional) Upon system launch, to immediately return to where the learner previously left off
• The capability of the webcam to recognize objects and bring up relevant resources for that object
• A built in RSS feed aggregator – or a similar technology – to enable learners to tap into the relevant “streams of content” that are constantly flowing by them
• Social media dashboards/portals – providing quick access to multiple sources of content and whereby learners can contribute their own “streams of content”
• A twist on the flipped classroom approach, whereby students can check out videos of equations, problems, etc. and put in their "markers" with accompanying comments throughout the videos, alerting the SMEs where they have questions, comments, and/or issues

In the future, new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR) will be integrated into this new learning environment – providing entirely new means of collaborating with one another.

Consider the items below:

In the future, we won't just be able to find movies or shows, but rather, we will also be able to quickly locate up-to-date, relevant learning-related content and participate in highly-practical, learning-related experiences.

And check out what they are doing now with radio stations! So...what can be done with learning-related streams of content?!

Consider the type of service/value being offered in the graphic below...and that such a service will be constantly available on a next-gen learning platform. That is, the system will:

• Scan open job descriptions
  
• Present a constantly-updated list of the top/"hottest" skills and occupations
• Offer the relevant courses, modules, webinars, local learning hubs, discussion forums, etc. that will teach you the necessary skills to land those jobs (similar to what is shown in the above grapic involving justwatch.com or suppose.tv and what those vendors are providing for the entertainment industry).

© 2026 | Daniel Christian

However, this vision/idea goes back much further than the date listed on the
graphic below -- and the pieces continue to come together!