Last updated on 6/9/26

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:

From DSC:
Could this be a part of our future learning ecosystems? Education as a personalized content feed.

Coursera wants users to learn through shorter, faster content  — from digitaltrends.com by Moinak Pal [posted on 6/9/26]
Coursera wants online learning to feel more like TikTok

Online learning platform Coursera is taking a page straight out of TikTok’s playbook. The company has launched a new AI-powered feed designed to serve short-form educational content in a scrollable, personalized format, signaling a major shift in how digital learning platforms may try to keep users engaged.

The feature introduces bite-sized video lessons, clips, and explainers curated through artificial intelligence based on a user’s interests, learning habits, career goals, and previous course activity. Instead of committing to hour-long lectures or full certification programs upfront, users can now discover short educational snippets designed to make learning feel more casual, accessible, and addictive.
...
Users scroll through a feed of short educational videos and AI-curated learning moments covering topics ranging from coding and business to AI, productivity, data science, and personal development.

Tuition discount rate reaches 57% for private nonprofits, NACUBO says — from highereddive.com by Ben Unglesbee [posted on 6/1/26]
Price cuts are getting even deeper for first-year undergraduates, while net tuition revenue has fallen, according to the organization.

Early data from the 2025-26 academic year shows historically deep tuition discounts getting even deeper at private nonprofit colleges, according to a study released Monday from the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

For first-time undergraduates, the tuition discount rate at these colleges is projected to reach 57.1% in the current academic year. That’s up from 54.5% from the year before, and the highest point in the past decade. For all undergraduates, the discount rate is poised to hit 51.3%, up from 50% last year and above the most recent peak at 50.8% in 2022-23.

However, revenue declines across the undergraduate body pose difficulties for tuition-dependent colleges. It “suggests that retention alone is not enough to eliminate financial strain at many tuition-dependent institutions,” NACUBO said in its report. 

From DSC:
The higher education landscape isn't looking too good these days.

What AI-Enabled Education Actually Looks Like When It’s Working for Workforce Students — from gettingsmart.com by Stephen Griffin [posted on 5/31/26]

Key Points

• Institutions can use AI to make skills, pathways, and job outcomes visible to students and employers in ways traditional transcripts cannot.
• Academic affairs, workforce development, career services, and employers need a shared definition of readiness and competency before tools can deliver meaningful value.

"The second is portable competency records. Learning and employment records — AI-enabled documentation of what a student knows and can do, expressed in language employers recognize — are the infrastructure that makes credentials legible across the education-to-employment continuum. When a student can show an employer not just “completed Supply Chain Management 101” but “demonstrated proficiency in inventory optimization, route planning, and logistics software at the industry-recognized level,” the credential stops being abstract. It becomes evidence. Building these records requires investment in tools, yes — but more importantly, it requires faculty, workforce development staff, and employer partners to agree on what competency actually looks like before the technology is ever purchased."

From AI Tutors to AI Study Mates — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Dr Philippa Hardman
New research reveals how AI can enable real learning — not just productivity gains

From DSC:
Notice that when an AI-based learning system can remember what you've worked on and how you are doing -- where you are struggling or doing well -- it can have a positive impact on your longer-term learning.

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 o

  ---

  f 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!