As artificial intelligence and global insecurity challenge university leaders worldwide, it is more important than ever for universities to remain true to their fundamental principles, according to the President of the American Council on Education (ACE), Ted Mitchell. “Independence, intellectual inquiry and academic excellence, inclusion, [and] the expectation that education is a good to be consumed by all of our citizens – these are things that we can’t compromise [on],” he said via video link to a conference of global university leaders of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP) this week in Seoul, South Korea.
Thursday, October 30, 2025
7 skills Harvard says will keep you employed in the age of ChatGPT - Times of India
Generative AI is transforming workplaces. Harvard research highlights seven key human skills that will keep workers valuable. These include critical thinking, AI fluency, complex problem-solving, communication, lifelong learning, ethical judgment and experimentation. Mastering these abilities will allow individuals to effectively leverage AI tools and navigate the evolving job market. Employers will prioritise these durable human capabilities.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Universities Teaching Wisdom Skills 2030 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
Virtually all aspects and positions at universities will be touched by the AI transformation. The changes will come more rapidly than many of us in higher education are accustomed to or with which we are comfortable. In large part, the speed will be demanded by employers of our learners and by competition among universities. Change will also strike directly at the nature of what and how we teach. The higher-level skills humans will need as described by the Global Skills Development Council are different from many of the career-specific skills that universities now provide in short form certificates and certification programs. Rather, I suggest that these broad, deep skills are ones that we might best describe as “wisdom” skills. They are not vocational, but instead, deeper skills related to overall maturity and sophistication in leadership, vision and insight. They include thinking critically, thinking creatively, applying ethical reasoning, and adaptive collaboration with both humans and agentic AI.
What’s Your AI-dentity? - Bloomberg
The momentous decisions the world faces about AI’s role in our lives offer outcomes that seemingly range from universal enlightenment to mass extinction. How do you see AI shaping our future? More importantly, how do you want it to shape our future? Are you an Accelerationist? A Pragmatist? A Doomer? Take our quiz to find out which one of six different AI-dentities most closely resembles your views, how your answers affected your result and who your real-life fellow travelers might be.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
EDUCAUSE Action Plan Looks 10 Years Ahead at GenAI for Education - Abby Sourwine, GovTech
In a new action plan, EDUCAUSE outlines skills, ethics and collaboration strategies to guide effective use and implementation of generative artificial intelligence on college campuses for the next decade. With artificial intelligence advancing at breakneck speed, a new document from the nonprofit EDUCAUSE aims to give colleges and universities proactive steps to meet an uncertain future of teaching and learning with generative AI, rather than simply reacting to technological change. The report, 2025 EDUCAUSE Horizon Action Plan: Building Skills and Literacy for Teaching with Generative AI, is the latest in EDUCAUSE’s long-running Horizon series and outlines how educators and administrators can build skills and literacy to teach with generative AI now and in the future.
‘Urgent need’ for more AI literacy in higher education, report says - Anna McKie, Research Professional News
There is an “urgent need” to improve AI literacy among both staff and students at British universities, according to a report from the Higher Education Policy Institute. The report takes a broad view on how AI is reshaping higher education, including institutional strategy, teaching and assessment, research, and professional services. Wendy Hall, an internet pioneer and director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, and Giles Carden, chief strategy officer at Southampton, state in the report’s foreword that “simply acknowledging AI’s presence is insufficient”. “Active, informed engagement and a structured approach to skill development are paramount to ensure universities remain relevant and effective,” they say.
Monday, October 27, 2025
Realizing the full potential of AI agents - McKinsey
The story of agentic AI is still unfolding. The majority of CEOs have yet to see bottom-line value from AI agents. But there’s no question that the pace and potential scope of change are breathtaking. While we’re waiting for the technology to fully mature, CEOs can take advantage of this “trough of disillusionment” to understand the implications for how their companies operate, make some essential decisions, and get a jump on their competitors. A year into the agentic AI revolution, one lesson is clear: It takes hard work to do it well. We recently dug into more than 50 agentic AI builds we’ve supported, as well as dozens of others in the marketplace. Six lessons have emerged. Here’s one that may surprise you: Agents aren’t always the answer.
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/email/shortlist/272/2025-10-17b.html
Concern and excitement about AI - Jacob Poushter, Moira Fagan and Manolo Corichi, Pew Research Center
A median of 34% of adults across 25 countries are more concerned than excited about the increased use of artificial intelligence in daily life. A median of 42% are equally concerned and excited, and 16% are more excited than concerned. Older adults, women, people with less education and those who use the internet less often are particularly likely to be more concerned than excited. Roughly half of adults in the U.S., Italy, Australia, Brazil and Greece say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. But in 15 of the 25 countries polled, the largest share of people are equally concerned and excited. In no country surveyed is the largest share more excited than concerned about the increasing use of AI in daily life.
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Sharing Resources, Best Practices in AI - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed
While generative artificial intelligence tools have proliferated in education and workplace settings, not all tools are free or accessible to students and staff, which can create equity gaps regarding who is able to participate and learn new skills. To address this gap, San Diego State University leaders created an equitable AI alliance in partnership with the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Community College District. Together, the institutions work to address affordability and accessibility concerns for AI solutions, as well as share best practices, resources and expertise. In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with James Frazee, San Diego State University’s chief information officer, about the alliance and SDSU’s approach to teaching AI skills to students.
3 Leadership Micro-Credentials Are Redefining The Modern Career Path -Cheryl Robinson, Forbes
Traditional degrees are yielding to skills-based hiring, making micro-credentials crucial for professionals. These short, focused programs, offered by universities and tech platforms, efficiently equip leaders with vital skills like digital fluency and strategic agility. They address the urgent need for reskilling by 2030, enabling continuous learning and proving capabilities without lengthy academic commitments, though standardization is still evolving.
Saturday, October 25, 2025
About 1 in 5 U.S. workers now use AI in their job, up since last year - Luona Lin, Pew Research
As the abilities of artificial intelligence (AI) tools advance rapidly, a growing share of Americans say they are using the technology in their jobs. Today, 21% of U.S. workers say at least some of their work is done with AI, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in September. That share is up from 16% roughly a year ago. Most American workers (65%) still say they don’t use AI much or at all in their job.
Friday, October 24, 2025
Quantum record smashed as scientists build mammoth 6,000-qubit system — and it works at room temperature - Tristan Greene, Live Science
Scientists at Caltech have conducted a record-breaking experiment in which they synchronized 6,100 atoms in a quantum array. This research could lead to more robust, fault-tolerant quantum computers. In the experiment, they used paired neutral atoms as the quantum bits (qubits) in a system and held them in a state of “superposition” to conduct quantum computations. To achieve this, the scientists split a laser beam into 12,000 "laser tweezers" which together held the 6,100 qubits. As described in a new study published Sept. 24 in the journal Nature, the scientists not only set a new record for the number of atomic qubits placed in a single array — they also extended the length of "superposition" coherency.
https://share.google/
Google shares a massive list of 1,000+ generative AI use cases - Aditya Tiwari, Neowin
Generative AI will continue to expand its reach whether you want it or not. While the race was unofficially started by OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google has become one of the leaders in the space with its Gemini-branded products and services. For some, generative AI exposure might still be limited to a chatbot or a tool that converts their image into a video. But the tech has many possibilities, ranging from AI pharmacists, vacation planners, coding agents, and autonomous driving, to AI that can browse the web for you. Google has published a lengthy list of 1001 use cases of generative AI across different sectors like Automotive, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Business, Hospitality, Travel, and Media.
Thursday, October 23, 2025
A systematic review on AI-enhanced pedagogies in higher education in the Global SouthProvisionally accepted - Gloria KhozaNomfundo and Freda Van Der Walt, Frontiers in Education
Artificial intelligence is gaining traction in higher education for its ability to simulate human intelligence and support learning processes. This systematic review investigates how artificial intelligence-enhanced teaching approaches are being applied in higher education institutions across the Global South. The study draws on peer-reviewed literature identified through a structured search of SCOPUS and Web of Science databases, using clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The findings reveal that most applications focus on improving technical efficiency and administrative functions, while pedagogical integration remains limited. Key barriers include inadequate infrastructure, unequal access to digital tools, limited faculty preparedness, and ethical considerations.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1667884/abstract
Universities need AI sovereignty to protect free thought - Peter Salden, University World News
The question of digital sovereignty is becoming more urgent for universities in the age of artificial intelligence. AI-based applications are not only critical from the perspective of data protection and functional transparency, but also pose a threat to independent thinking. AI literacy, an independent AI infrastructure and a clearly defined strategic framework are fundamental for defending academic freedom. Since the beginning of digitalisation, universities worldwide have been preoccupied with the question of digital sovereignty. This involves issues such as ensuring that IT applications comply with data protection regulations and reducing technical and financial dependencies. However, artificial intelligence is challenging digital sovereignty in new ways that go beyond these classic aspects.
https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20251007143251841
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
How to Teach Critical Thinking When AI Does the Thinking - Timothy Cook, Psychology Today
Students who've learned dialogic engagement with AI behave completely differently. They ask follow-up questions during class discussions. They can explain their reasoning when challenged. They challenge each other's arguments using evidence they personally evaluated. They identify limitations in their own conclusions. They want to keep investigating beyond the assignment requirements. The difference is how they used it. This means approaching every AI interaction as a sustained interrogation. Instead of "write an analysis of symbolism in The Great Gatsby," students must "generate an AI analysis first, then critique what it missed with their own interpretations of the symbolism. “What assumptions does the AI make in its interpretation and how could it be wrong?" “What would a 20th-century historian say about this approach?” “Can you see these themes present in The Great Gatsby in your own life?”
The end of AI and the future of higher education - James Yoonil Auh, University World News
We now live in what I call the atmosphere of cognition: not the disappearance of AI, but its absorption into the invisible architectures of institutional life. Like Wi-Fi, AI is no longer a tool at the margins but the infrastructure of thought. Algorithms now shape admissions. Predictive models determine financial aid. Recommendation engines curate research. Plagiarism detectors and manuscript filters run silently in the background. To speak of ‘using AI’ in 2025 is like debating whether universities should install electricity. This is not simply a technical evolution. It is civilisational. The printing press multiplied texts, but students still thought alone. The internet digitised knowledge, but students still wrote in their own words. MOOCs disrupted delivery but not learning itself. AI is different. It entwines itself with cognition.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
‘The Future of Teaching in the AI Age’ Draws Hundreds of Educators to Iona University - Iona University
“At Iona, we are choosing to engage with AI not because it is fashionable, but because it is necessary. Our students, and of course us as educators as well, are entering a world where AI will shape – or has begun to shape already – nearly every profession, from health care to business to education itself,” said Tricia Mulligan, Ph.D., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Iona. “AI can provide outputs in seconds, but it cannot help us discern whether those outputs are true, fair, ethical, or good. That work remains profoundly human. Our role as educators is to guide students in cultivating this habit of discernment, so that they graduate not just knowing how to use the latest tool, but how to direct it toward the service of humanity.”
AI in higher education: Experts discuss changes to be seen - Stephen Kenney, Phys.org
While students are flocking to AI tools, many universities have failed to keep up with the dramatic shift. A January 2025 report from the Digital Education Council revealed that though 61% of college faculty have used AI in teaching, 88% of them have only incorporated it in minimal to moderate amounts. The University of Cincinnati is at the forefront of shaping AI policy and equipping faculty and students with AI literacy skills. MidwestCon, one of the region's premier tech conferences, recently hosted its 2025 event at UC's 1819 Innovation Hub and discussed the role of AI in higher education. Below are some takeaways from the session titled "Brains, Bots and the Battle for Creativity."
Monday, October 20, 2025
‘It would almost be stupid not to use ChatGPT’ - Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau, Resource Online Netherlands
Amid widespread concern among lecturers about students’ use of AI tools, public philosopher Bas Haring mostly sees opportunities: ‘Outsourcing part of the thinking process to AI shouldn’t be prohibited.’ Bas Haring annoyed a lot of people with a provocative recent experiment. For one of his students last year, the philosopher and professor of public understanding of science delegated his responsibilities as a thesis supervisor to AI. The student discussed her progress not with Haring, but with ChatGPT – and the results were surprisingly positive. While Haring may be excited about the outcome of his experiment, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. Some have called it unethical, irresponsible, unimaginative and even disgusting. It has also been suggested that this could provide populists with an excuse to further slash education budgets.
C-RAC Releases Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - MSCHE
C-RAC Releases Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - MSCHE
On October 6, 2025, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC) released a Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Advance Learning Evaluation and Recognition. C-RAC stated:
Put simply, the use of AI in learning evaluation does not conflict with accreditation standards, policies, or practices. Accreditation is never a reason to not implement technology solutions that leverage AI for learning evaluation. Since innovating to advance student success is a central tenet of accreditation expectations, C-RAC supports the exploration and application of transparent, accountable, and unbiased AI solutions within the practice of learning evaluation and credit transfer.
Sunday, October 19, 2025
OpenAI Wants ChatGPT to Be Your Future Operating System - Laren Goode and Will Knight, Wired
OpenAI unveiled a new way to embed third-party apps directly into ChatGPT. At the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco, CEO Sam Altman said the move would “enable a new generation of apps that are adaptive, interactive, and personalized, that you can chat with.” Starting today, some developers will be able to use a preview version of a new apps software development kit (SDK) to build apps within ChatGPT using open standards. The ability to distribute these apps is currently limited to a handful of big partners. Altman showed off several examples of how these apps would ultimately work within ChatGPT. The demo featured Spotify, Canva, and Zillow apps appearing inside a chat and responding to typed commands.
The future of the CLO: Leading in a world of merged work and learning - Bryan Hancock and Heather Stefanski with Lisa Christensen, McKinsey
Rapid technological advancements, shifting market dynamics, and a complex regulatory landscape are reshaping industries at a breakneck pace. To respond, employees will need new skills, mindsets, and ways of operating. Yet, at a time when development is critical to organizational success, some companies are moving in the opposite direction. They are dissolving senior learning roles or pushing learning deeper into human resources, further separating learning leaders from where strategic decisions are being made. It’s a time of both tremendous opportunity and risk. For chief learning officers (CLOs), the stakes have never been higher. Learning leaders have dreamed about delivering personalized development at scale for decades. The best learning functions have made the most of the tools available to become partners in strategy, experts in development, and fluent in technology. With the advent of AI, CLOs and their organizations are ready for the next evolution: a fundamental transformation in the way organizational learning is delivered.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Beyond learning design: supporting pedagogical innovation in response to AI - Charlotte von Essen, Times Higher Education
To avoid an unwinnable game of catch-up with technology, universities must rethink pedagogical improvement that goes beyond scaling online learning. Now artificial intelligence is accelerating these tensions. Used well, AI could give faculty and designers more space to experiment, reflect and take risks. But if it is simply used to produce more content, faster, universities risk deepening a content conveyor belt mentality. If higher education wants genuine teaching innovation, it must recognise that pedagogy is the real driver of educational quality. This means making pedagogical improvement a strategic goal. Institutions can anchor innovation in values, build authentic communities of practice and invest explicitly in pedagogical leadership.
As we celebrate teachers, AI is redefining the classroom - Hani Shehada, CGTN
Hani Shehada, a special commentator for CGTN, is a regional manager at Education Above All Foundation's Al Fakhoora Program. He works on global interventions that provide access to higher education for young people whose futures have been disrupted by war and injustice. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
Artificial intelligence is not knocking politely on the door of higher education; it is kicking it wide open. What we thought would take decades is happening in just a few years. In some cases, in months. Universities that stood for centuries as the ultimate gatekeepers of knowledge are now watching that monopoly evaporate in real time. Here lies the irony: the very institutions that claim to prepare us for the future are themselves unprepared for the speed at which the future is arriving. And that forces us to ask a deeper question: What were universities for in the first place?
Friday, October 17, 2025
Universities can turn AI from a threat to an opportunity by teaching critical thinking - Anitia Lubbe, the Conversation
But focusing only on policing misses a bigger issue: whether students are really learning. As an education researcher, I’m interested in the topic of how students learn. My colleagues and I recently explored the role AI could play in learning – if universities tried a new way of assessing students. We found that many traditional forms of assessment in universities remain focused on memorisation and rote learning. These are exactly the tasks that AI performs best. We argue that it’s time to reconsider what students should be learning. This should include the ability to evaluate and analyse AI-created text. That’s a skill which is essential for critical thinking.
Emerging and established readers’ cognitive and metacognitive strategies during online evaluation - Julie A. Corrigan, Elena Forzani - Computers in Human Behavior
•This study describes a range of cognitive and metacognitive strategies involving qualitatively more complex and varied strategies used to critically evaluate online information.
•Cognitive and metacognitive evaluation strategies were compared and contrasted within and between groups of emerging and established evaluators, which demonstrated that experts use more varied and greater instances of metacognition and relied more heavily on corroboration (with self, expert, and other) strategies.
•Overall, this study represents a holistic synthesis of the cognitive and metacognitive strategies necessary to evaluate online information credibility.
Thursday, October 16, 2025
AI Boom Drives Surge in Demand for Tech Skills in 2025 - Victor Dey, GovTech
Artificial intelligence is doing more than just automating workflows in 2025: It’s dismantling the very idea of education. Once seen as one-time achievements, a bachelor’s degree, a professional certificate, or an annual corporate training session, are no longer guarantees of relevance in a world where knowledge ages almost as quickly as technology itself. Nearly half of talent development leaders surveyed in LinkedIn’s 2025 Workplace Learning Report say they see a skills crisis, with organizations under pressure to equip employees for both present and future roles through dynamic skill-building, particularly in AI and generative AI.
https://www.govtech.com/education/ai-boom-drives-surge-in-demand-for-tech-skills-in-2025
New data show no AI jobs apocalypse—for now - Molly Kinder, et al; Brookings
Every day brings new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence—and new fears about the technology’s potential to trigger mass unemployment. CEOs predict white collar “bloodbaths.” Headlines warn of widespread job losses. With public anxiety growing, it can feel like the economy is already hemorrhaging jobs to AI. But what if, at least for now, the data are telling a different story? To find out, we measured how the labor market has changed since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022. Specifically, we analyzed the change in the occupational mix across the labor market over the past 33 months. If generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT were automating jobs at scale, we would expect to see fewer workers employed in jobs at greatest risk of automation. Our data found the opposite.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Higher Education AI Transformation 2030 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
We have begun a transformation in higher education that will make us more responsive, efficient and effective at achieving our multiple missions. This will not be easy or without trauma, but it is necessary. To build this new future, we must first rethink the very foundations of our institutions. This is not about adding a few new apps to the learning management system. Rather, it’s about a fundamental re-architecture of how we operate, how we teach and how we define the work of our faculty and students. Key factors include institutional strategy, pedagogy and the future of work.
From Detection to Development: How Universities Are Ethically Embedding AI for Learning - Isabelle Bambury, Higher Education Policy Institute
The Universities UK Annual Conference always serves as a vital barometer for the higher education sector, and this year, few topics were as prominent as the role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). A packed session, Ethical AI in Higher Education for improving learning outcomes: A policy and leadership discussion, provided a refreshing and pragmatic perspective, moving the conversation beyond academic integrity fears and towards genuine educational innovation. Based on early findings from new independent research commissioned by Studiosity, the session’s panellists offered crucial insights and a clear path forward.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Research, curriculum and grading: new data sheds light on how professors are using AI - Lee V. Gaines, NPR
New research from Anthropic — the company behind the AI chatbot Claude — suggests professors around the world are using AI for curriculum development, designing lessons, conducting research, writing grant proposals, managing budgets, grading student work and designing their own interactive learning tools, among other uses. "When we looked into the data late last year, we saw that of all the ways people were using Claude, education made up two out of the top four use cases," says Drew Bent, education lead at Anthropic and one of the researchers who led the study.
William & Mary launches ChatGPT Edu pilot - Laren Weber, William and Mary
The initiative is a collaboration between the School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics (CDSP), Information Technology, W&M Libraries and the Mason School of Business and is part of a broader push to embed advanced AI into everyday academic life. The pilot will explore how AI can enhance teaching, research and university operations, while also gathering feedback to guide the responsible and effective use of AI across campus. The results will help shape how W&M leverages AI to advance our world-class academics and research. Additionally, faculty and staff outside of the pilot who are interested in purchasing an Edu license can visit the W&M ChatGPT Edu site for more information.
https://news.wm.edu/2025/10/01/william-mary-launches-chatgpt-edu-pilot/
Monday, October 13, 2025
UMass Students Showcase AI Tools Built for State Agencies - Government Technology
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey invited University of Massachusetts, Amherst students to create AI tools to assist public agencies. The students traveled to Boston last week to share their work. Government leaders in Massachusetts are looking to university students as partners in delivering AI services to their constituents, and a recent showcase highlighted how these collaborations have simplified user experiences with state technology.
AI Grading: Revolutionizing Feedback in Higher Education - Bioengineer
In the era of educational innovation, artificial intelligence has emerged as a transformative force, redefining the dynamics of assessment in universities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not merely a tool used for automating tasks, but an advanced system that can analyze vast amounts of data, predict outcomes, and personalize experiences. The application of AI in grading and providing tailored feedback holds the promise of revolutionizing traditional educational practices, enhancing the learning experience for diverse student populations. The concept of AI-powered grading has evolved significantly, transitioning from rudimentary algorithms that merely evaluate student outputs to sophisticated systems capable of understanding context, nuance, and individual learning trajectories.
Sunday, October 12, 2025
AI Isn't a Curse. It's a Gift for College Learning. - Samuel J. Abrams, Real Clear Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran a piece that offers a beautiful and evocative snapshot of intellectual life at its best. Its authors, Khafiz Kerimov and Nicholas Bellinson of St. John’s College, describe students gathered around a blackboard in a campus coffee shop, each wielding a different color of chalk as they work through Euclid and Lobachevsky together. This is admirable, and more institutions could learn from St. John’s commitment to dialogue. But from this unique experience, the authors make a sweeping claim: that artificial intelligence - specifically tools like ChatGPT’s “study mode”- will steal our ability to think and work together. They worry that students will abandon collaborative learning for solitary interactions with machines, and that the vibrant hum of campus life will fade into silence. It’s a poetic warning. It’s also profoundly mistaken.
Is Artificial Intelligence Reshaping Higher Education? - Amy Dittmar, et al; Baker Institute
What does the acceleration of artificial intelligence mean for higher education, from the admissions process to students’ academic and intellectual development? How can students learn to engage responsibly with AI, and what does it mean for the early graduate labor market? Baker Institute fellow and guest host Michael O. Emerson sat down with Rice University Provost Amy Dittmar, University of Houston Associate Provost Jeff Morgan, and Burke Nixon, a senior lecturer in Rice’s writing and communication program, to discuss the advent of AI and its implications for colleges and universities.
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Sora 2 is here - OpenAI
Our latest video generation model is more physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable than prior systems. It also features synchronized dialogue and sound effects. Create with it in the new Sora app. The original Sora model from February 2024 was in many ways the GPT‑1 moment for video—the first time video generation started to seem like it was working, and simple behaviors like object permanence emerged from scaling up pre-training compute. Since then, the Sora team has been focused on training models with more advanced world simulation capabilities. We believe such systems will be critical for training AI models that deeply understand the physical world. A major milestone for this is mastering pre-training and post-training on large-scale video data, which are in their infancy compared to language.
The agentic organization: Contours of the next paradigm for the AI era - Alexander Sukharevsky, et al; McKinsey
AI is bringing the largest organizational paradigm shift since the industrial and digital revolutions (see sidebar, “The evolution of operating models”). This new paradigm unites humans and AI agents—both virtual and physical—to work side by side at scale at near-zero marginal cost. We call it the agentic organization. McKinsey’s experience working with early adopters indicates that AI agents can unlock significant value. Organizations are beginning to deploy virtual AI agents along a spectrum of increasing complexity: from simple tools that augment existing activities to end-to-end workflow automation to entire “AI-first” agentic systems. In parallel, physical AI agents are emerging. Companies are making strides in developing “bodies” for AI, such as smart devices, drones, self-driving vehicles, and early attempts at humanoid robots. These machines allow AI to interface with the physical world.
Friday, October 10, 2025
OpEd: Adapting Higher Ed To New AI World - Alfonzo Berumen, LA Business Journal
Job prospects, even with a degree in hand, aren’t the only aspect of higher education being affected. GenAI has demonstrated the ability to solve mathematical problems and respond to case study questions which are designed to develop critical thinking in students. In a sense, it has replaced the idea of there being only one expert in the room, the professor. This has come at a time when universities are under fire with questions around value for the cost from the student side and diminishing contributions to innovation on the industry side.
ChatGPT Study Mode - Explained By A Learning Coach - Justin Sung, YouTube
The main issue is that the interaction remains very user-led, as Study Mode struggles to dynamically adjust its teaching to a beginner's exact level or pinpoint the root cause of confusion without specific, targeted input from the student [10:10]. The coach found that a passive learner could be stuck in confusion for 30 minutes, whereas an active, metacognitive learner was able to break through the same confusion in just two minutes by asking the right questions [16:15]. Ultimately, the host recommends using Study Mode for targeted study with specific questions, advising that users must embrace active, effortful thinking because effective learning cannot be made easy [19:18]. [summary provided in part by Gemini 2.5 Flash]
Thursday, October 09, 2025
Governor Newsom signs SB 53, advancing California’s world-leading artificial intelligence industry - Governor Gavin Newsom
Governor Newsom today signed into law Senate Bill 53, the Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act (TFAIA), authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) – legislation carefully designed to enhance online safety by installing commonsense guardrails on the development of frontier artificial intelligence models, helping build public trust while also continuing to spur innovation in these new technologies. The new law builds on recommendations from California’s first-in-the-nation report, called for by Governor Newsom and published earlier this year — and helps advance California’s position as a national leader in responsible and ethical AI, the world’s fourth-largest economy, the birthplace of new technology, and the top pipeline for tech talent.
Udemy Banks on Artificial Intelligence to Power Online Learning - Bloomberg Businessweek
Udemy is in the midst of pivoting from a leading online learning platform to an AI-powered skills acceleration platform built for individuals and organizations. The company says it has expanded its focus from learning to "reskilling," which includes assessment, role plays, and new learning experiences. The company runs what it calls a "two-sided" business: a marketplace for consumers as well as Udemy Business for enterprises, which is designed to help businesses become more competitive.
Wednesday, October 08, 2025
50 AI agents get their first annual performance review - 6 lessons learned - Joe McKendrick, ZDnet
"Agentic AI efforts that focus on fundamentally reimagining entire workflows -- that is, the steps that involve people, processes, and technology -- are more likely to deliver a positive outcome," according to the review. Start with addressing key user pain points, the co-authors suggest. Organizations with document-intensive workflows, such as insurance companies or legal firms, for example, benefit from having agents handle tedious steps. There will always be a need for human workers to "oversee model accuracy, ensure compliance, use judgment, and handle edge cases," the co-authors emphasized. Redesign work "so that people and agents can collaborate well together. Without that focus, even the most advanced agentic programs risk silent failures, compounding errors, and user rejection."
The future of work is agentic - McKinsey
Think about your org chart. Now imagine it features both your current colleagues—humans, if you’re like most of us—and AI agents. That’s not science fiction; it’s happening—and it’s happening relatively quickly, according to McKinsey Senior Partner Jorge Amar. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Talent, Jorge joins McKinsey talent leaders Brooke Weddle and Bryan Hancock and Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly to talk about what these AI agents are, how they’re being used, and how leaders can prepare now for the workforce of the not-too-distant future.
Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Factors influencing undergraduates’ ethical use of ChatGPT: a reasoned goal pursuit approach - Radu BogdanToma & Iraya Yánez-Pérez, Interactive Learning Environments
The widespread use of large language models, such as ChatGPT, has changed the learning behaviours of undergraduate students, raising issues of academic dishonesty. This study investigates the factors that influence the ethical use of ChatGPT among undergraduates using the recently proposed Theory of Reasoned Goal Pursuit. Through a qualitative elicitation procedure, 26 salient beliefs were identified, representing procurement and approval goals, advantages and disadvantages, the social influence, and factors facilitating and hindering ethical use of ChatGPT. A subsequent, two-wave quantitative survey provided promising evidence for the theory, revealing that positive attitudes and subjective norms emerged as key antecedents of motivation to use ChatGPT ethically.
Linking digital competence, self-efficacy, and digital stress to perceived interactivity in AI-supported learning contexts - Jiaxin Ren, Juncheng Guo & Huanxi Li, Nature
As artificial intelligence technologies become more integrated into educational contexts, understanding how learners perceive and interact with such systems remains an important area of inquiry. This study investigated associations between digital competence and learners’ perceived interactivity with artificial intelligence, considering the potential mediating roles of information retrieval self-efficacy and self-efficacy for human–robot interaction, as well as the potential moderating role of digital stress. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the technology acceptance model, cognitive load theory, the identical elements theory, and the control–value theory of achievement emotions, a moderated serial mediation model was tested using data from 921 Chinese university students. The results indicated that digital competence was positively associated with perceived interactivity, both directly and indirectly through a sequential pathway involving the two forms of self-efficacy.
Monday, October 06, 2025
Sans Safeguards, AI in Education Risks Deepening Inequality - Government Technology
A new UNESCO report cautions that artificial intelligence has the potential to threaten students’ access to quality education. The organization calls for a focus on people, to ensure digital tools enhance education. While AI and other digital technology hold enormous potential to improve education, a new UNESCO report warns they also risk eroding human rights and worsening inequality if deployed without deliberately robust safeguards. Digitalization and AI in education must be anchored in human rights, UNESCO argued in the report, AI and Education: Protecting the Rights of Learners, and the organization urged governments and international organizations to focus on people, not technology, to ensure digital tools enhance rather than endanger the right to education.
https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/sans-safeguards-ai-in-education-risks-deepening-inequality
What's your college's AI policy? Find out here. - Chase DiBenedetto, Mashable
Part of ChatGPT for Education, OpenAI has announced educational partnerships with Harvard Business School, University of Pennsylvania's Wharton College, Duke, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), UC San Diego, UC Davis, Indiana University, Arizona State University, Mount Sinai's Ichan School of Medicine, and the entire California State University (CSU) System — OpenAI's collaboration with CSU schools is the largest ChatGPT deployment yet. But there are dozens more, an OpenAI spokesperson told Mashable, that haven't made their ChatGPT partnerships public. Ed Clark, chief information officer for CSU, told Mashable that the decision to partner with OpenAI came from a survey of students that showed many were already signing up for AI accounts using their student emails — faculty and staff were too.
Sunday, October 05, 2025
Linking digital competence, self-efficacy, and digital stress to perceived interactivity in AI-supported learning contexts - Jiaxin Ren, Nature
As artificial intelligence technologies become more integrated into educational contexts, understanding how learners perceive and interact with such systems remains an important area of inquiry. This study investigated associations between digital competence and learners’ perceived interactivity with artificial intelligence, considering the potential mediating roles of information retrieval self-efficacy and self-efficacy for human–robot interaction, as well as the potential moderating role of digital stress. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the technology acceptance model, cognitive load theory, the identical elements theory, and the control–value theory of achievement emotions, a moderated serial mediation model was tested using data from 921 Chinese university students. The results indicated that digital competence was positively associated with perceived interactivity, both directly and indirectly through a sequential pathway involving the two forms of self-efficacy.
What your students are thinking about artificial intelligence - Florencia Moore & Agostina Arbia, Time Higher Eduction
Students have been quick to adopt and integrate GenAI into their study practices, using it as a virtual assistant to enhance and enrich their learning. At the same time, they sometimes rely on it as a substitute for their own ideas and thinking, since GenAI can complete academic tasks in a matter of seconds. While the first or even second iteration may yield a hallucinated or biased response, with prompt refinement and guidance, it can produce results very close to our expectations almost instantly.
Saturday, October 04, 2025
Syracuse University adopts Claude for Education - EdScoop
yracuse University, the private research institution in New York, this week announced that it’s formed a partnership with Anthropic, the company behind the popular Claude chatbot, to provide students, faculty and staff with a version of the software designed for use in higher education. “Expanding access to Claude for all members of our community is another step in making Syracuse University the most digitally connected campus in America,” Jeff Rubin, senior vice president and chief digital officer, said in a press release. “By equipping every student, faculty member and staff member with Claude, we’re not only fueling innovation, but also preparing our community to navigate, critique and co-create with AI in real-world contexts.”
Colleges are giving students ChatGPT. Is it safe? - Rebecca Ruiz and Chase DiBenedetto - Mashable
This fall, hundreds of thousands of students will get free access to ChatGPT, thanks to a licensing agreement between their school or university and the chatbot's maker, OpenAI. When the partnerships in higher education became public earlier this year, they were lauded as a way for universities to help their students familiarize themselves with an AI tool that experts say will define their future careers. At California State University (CSU), a system of 23 campuses with 460,000 students, administrators were eager to team up with OpenAI for the 2025-2026 school year. Their deal provides students and faculty access to a variety of OpenAI tools and models, making it the largest deployment of ChatGPT for Education, or ChatGPT Edu, in the country.
Friday, October 03, 2025
We’re introducing GDPval, a new evaluation that measures model performance on economically valuable, real-world tasks across 44 occupations. - OpenAI
We found that today’s best frontier models are already approaching the quality of work produced by industry experts. To test this, we ran blind evaluations where industry experts compared deliverables from several leading models—GPT‑4o, o4-mini, OpenAI o3, GPT‑5, Claude Opus 4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 4—against human-produced work. Across 220 tasks in the GDPval gold set, we recorded when model outputs were rated as better than (“wins”) or on par with (“ties”) the deliverables from industry experts, as shown in the bar chart below.... We also see clear progress over time on these tasks. Performance has more than doubled from GPT‑4o (released spring 2024) to GPT‑5 (released summer 2025), following a clear linear trend. In addition, we found that frontier models can complete GDPval tasks roughly 100x faster and 100x cheaper than industry experts.
The AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education - Georgia Tech
(AI-ALOE), led by Georgia Tech and funded by the National Science Foundation, is a multi-institutional research initiative advancing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform adult learning and online education. Through collaborative research and innovation, AI-ALOE develops AI technologies and strategies to enhance teaching, personalize learning, and expand educational opportunities at scale. Since its launch, AI-ALOE has developed seven innovative AI technologies, deployed across more than 360 classes at multiple institutions, reaching over 30,000 students. Recent research news indicated that Jill Watson, our virtual teaching assistant, outperforms ChatGPT in real classrooms. In addition, our collaborative teams have produced about 160 peer-reviewed publications, advancing both research and practice in AI-augmented learning. We invite you to join us for our upcoming virtual research showcase and discover the latest innovations and breakthroughs in AI for education.
Thursday, October 02, 2025
Operationalize AI Accountability: A Leadership Playbook - Kevin Werbach, Knowledge at Wharton
Goal
Deploy AI systems with confidence by ensuring they are fair, transparent, and accountable — minimizing risk and maximizing long-term value.
Nano Tool
As organizations accelerate their use of AI, the pressure is on leaders to ensure these systems are not only effective but also responsible. A misstep can result in regulatory penalties, reputational damage, and loss of trust. Accountability must be designed in from the start — not bolted on after deployment.
Strengthening our Frontier Safety Framework - Four Flynn, Helen King, Anca Dragan, Google Deepmind
AI breakthroughs are transforming our everyday lives, from advancing mathematics, biology and astronomy to realizing the potential of personalized education. As we build increasingly powerful AI models, we’re committed to responsibly developing our technologies and taking an evidence-based approach to staying ahead of emerging risks. Today, we’re publishing the third iteration of our Frontier Safety Framework (FSF) — our most comprehensive approach yet to identifying and mitigating severe risks from advanced AI models. This update builds upon our ongoing collaborations with experts across industry, academia and government. We’ve also incorporated lessons learned from implementing previous versions and evolving best practices in frontier AI safety.
We urgently call for international red lines to prevent unacceptable AI risks. - AI Red Lines
Some advanced AI systems have already exhibited deceptive and harmful behavior, and yet these systems are being given more autonomy to take actions and make decisions in the world. Left unchecked, many experts, including those at the forefront of development, warn that it will become increasingly difficult to exert meaningful human control in the coming years. Governments must act decisively before the window for meaningful intervention closes. An international agreement on clear and verifiable red lines is necessary for preventing universally unacceptable risks. These red lines should build upon and enforce existing global frameworks and voluntary corporate commitments, ensuring that all advanced AI providers are accountable to shared thresholds. We urge governments to reach an international agreement on red lines for AI — ensuring they are operational, with robust enforcement mechanisms — by the end of 2026.
Wednesday, October 01, 2025
AI Hallucinations May Soon Be History - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
On Sept. 14, OpenAI researchers published a not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, “Why Language Models Hallucinate,” on arXiv. Gemini 2.5 Flash summarized the findings of the paper: "Systemic Problem: Hallucinations are not simply bugs but a systemic consequence of how AI models are trained and evaluated. Evaluation Incentives: Standard evaluation methods, particularly binary grading systems, reward models for generating an answer, even if it’s incorrect, and punish them for admitting uncertainty. Pressure to Guess: This creates a statistical pressure for large language models (LLMs) to guess rather than say “I don’t know,” as guessing can improve test scores even with the risk of being wrong."
AI is changing how Harvard students learn: Professors balance technology with academic integrity - MSN
AI has quickly become ubiquitous at Harvard. According to The Crimson’s 2025 Faculty of Arts and Sciences survey, nearly 80% of instructors reported encountering student work they suspected was AI-generated—a dramatic jump from just two years ago. Despite this, faculty confidence in identifying AI output remains low. Only 14% of respondents felt “very confident” in their ability to distinguish human from AI work. Research from Pennsylvania State University underscores this challenge: humans can correctly detect AI-generated text roughly 53% of the time, only slightly better than flipping a coin.
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Who’s funding the AI data center boom? - McKinsey
Millions of servers run 24/7 to power the AI boom in data centers across the globe, and demand isn’t slowing down. McKinsey research shows that by 2030, data centers are projected to require $6.7 trillion in capital expenditures worldwide to keep pace. Who are the investors behind this multitrillion-dollar race to fund AI compute power? McKinsey’s Mark Patel, Pankaj Sachdeva, and coauthors share five key investor archetypes, each with unique opportunities, challenges, and potential solutions.
Making the Case for Technology To Drive Higher Ed Enrollment - Tony Digrazia, Ed Tech
The past nine months have only worsened the issues higher education is facing, leaving university IT teams with fewer staffers working for lower salaries amid overall tightening budgets, some of it in response to an array of new financial challenges. That’s not to mention the challenges that were ever-present in the years leading up to 2025. The enrollment cliff is here, and while overall enrollments have steadied after a yearslong decline, the full impacts of the enrollment cliff may not be felt until a couple more freshman classes are enrolled. And faith in higher education has never been lower, with a meager 35% of Americans saying college is “very important,” according to a newly released Gallup poll.
Monday, September 29, 2025
College Students’ Test Scores Soared After ChatGPT. Their Writing? Not So Much - Steve Fink, Study Finds
Exam scores jumped nearly 22 points after ChatGPT’s launch, while writing project marks dropped by about 10.
Passing students generally improved, but failing students showed mixed results—better exams but lower overall marks.
Creative research proposals showed no change, highlighting tasks where AI offers little advantage.
Universities face a dilemma: AI boosts the easiest-to-grade assessments, while deeper tasks require costly human review.
Author Talks: The key to ideation? Start with the answer, not the problem - McKinsey
What do you mean by ‘begin with the answer’? They don’t call it a “creative leap” for nothing. Nobody talks about a series of steps that lead to a creation, a genuinely creative idea. The concept of divergent thinking, or “going wide,” is key to creating truly new ideas. Most of what we typically do is convergent thinking: reducing, criticizing, judging, deciding. Once you have an answer, that’s exciting. Then you can usually work back through it to prove it should work in theory. That’s what I mean by starting with the answer. Everyone likes to think that you can start with an analysis of the data and come up with an insight. Then you can start talking about possible solutions, proceed in a linear process of steps, and arrive at a great idea. I just haven’t experienced that ideas happen in that way. Great ideas come out of generating lots of ideas, most of which will be bad, one of which—just one of which—could be brilliant.
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Detecting and reducing scheming in AI models - OpenAI
In today’s deployment settings, models have little opportunity to scheme in ways that could cause significant harm. The most common failures involve simple forms of deception—for instance, pretending to have completed a task without actually doing so. We've put significant effort into studying and mitigating deception and have made meaningful improvements in GPT‑5 compared to previous models. For example, we’ve taken steps to limit GPT‑5’s propensity to deceive, cheat, or hack problems—training it to acknowledge its limits or ask for clarification when faced with impossibly large or under-specified tasks and to be more robust to environment failures—though these mitigations are not perfect and continued research is needed.
Public views on being human in 2035 - Lee Rainy, Elon University
This July 2025 survey by the Imagining the Digital Future Center found that American adults expect the changes in many human capacities in the coming AI-influenced decade will be potent and mostly negative. Americans said the widespread adoption of AI systems will have significant impact overall on human capacities in the coming decade About half (52%) of American adults surveyed said the impact AI will have on human capacities by the year 2035 will be revolutionary or deep and meaningful; 38% said the changes will be clear and distinct; and 7% said they expect that the changes will be barely perceptible. Just 3% said the impact will be inconsequential.
Saturday, September 27, 2025
Want to future-proof your campus? Start here - Kevin Sanders, University Business
Higher education is at a crossroads. Our institutions are wrestling with enrollment cliffs, questions of relevance, technological disruption and the age-old challenge of governance. Boards debate how to remain solvent. Presidents strategize about new programs and partnerships. Provosts explore AI, online expansion or micro-credentials. Everyone is reaching for levers they hope will strengthen the institution. Yet beneath all these efforts lies a single, urgent question: How do we make our institutions stronger in a time of change? In my experience, the answer is deceptively simple: develop leaders.
https://universitybusiness.com/want-to-future-proof-your-campus-start-here/
A day in the life of a student, 2045 - John Johnston, eCampus News
It is 6:45 a.m. in the year 2045, and Maya wakes to the gentle chime of her AI-integrated learning assistant. The device, embedded into her home’s wall system, has already analyzed her biometric data, sleep cycle, and class schedule to recommend a custom morning routine. Today’s recommendation is a brief guided meditation, followed by a protein-based breakfast delivered via drone from the university’s dining cooperative. Before her feet touch the floor, her education has already begun.
Education must remain centered on curiosity, connection, and human agency
4 ways AI is empowering the next generation of great teachers
The rise of AI-native universities: OpenAI’s vision for every student
https://www.ecampusnews.com/ai-in-education/2025/09/05/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-student-2045/
Friday, September 26, 2025
Students are using AI tools instead of building foundational skills - but resistance is growing - Joe McKendrick, ZDnet
Whether you are studying information technology, teaching it, or creating the software that powers learning, it's clear that artificial intelligence is challenging and changing education. Now, questions are being asked about using AI to boost learning, an approach that has implications for long-term career skills and privacy.
There is growing concern about student dependence on AI.
Today's computer science grads might understand less about IT systems.
Some technology professors are pushing back against AI in classrooms.
Google narrows the gap with ChatGPT as millions tap Nano Banana to make hyperrealistic 3D figurines. - Robert Hart, the Verge
The surge has likely propelled Gemini to the top of various app stores around the world. At the time of writing, Gemini is the leading iPhone app on Apple’s App Stores in the US, UK, Canada, France, Australia, Germany, and Italy. In many cases, it reached the prime position by surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which now sits in second place. On September 11th, Woodward said “India has found” the image editor and later said that Google was going to have to implement “temporary limits” on usage in order to manage extreme demand. “It’s a full-on stampede to use” Gemini, he said, adding that the “team is doing heroics to keep the system up and running.” So, what’s driving the surge? While a variety of edits have been popular, the runaway hit of Nano Banana has people turning themselves — or their pets — into 3D figurines.
https://www.theverge.com/news/778106/google-gemini-nano-banana-image-editor
Thursday, September 25, 2025
How this AI chatbot helps students navigate their first semester - Alcino Donadel, University Business
Western New England University’s newest staff member is working around the clock to check in on students and instantly connect them with the campus resources they need. Luckily, no human is losing any sleep. Spirit, the university’s generative AI chatbot, is entering its second full academic year of fielding mobile text messages from students. Over the past 12 months, machine and man exchanged over 17,000 messages, with students initiating over 2,200 questions. “Sometimes it’s challenging to go find a staff member in some random building, but messaging the chatbot ensures that their voice is going to be heard,” says Jeanne Powers, executive director of the Student Hub, the university’s student support center.
Google Notebook LM’s Capabilities and Impact: Expert analysis from - Agentic Brain, AI Report
The rapid expansion of artificial-intelligence tools has produced dozens of note-taking and research assistants, but few have delivered a coherent, end-to-end learning experience. Google’s Notebook LM stands out because it blends multimodal analysis, grounded responses and interactive learning aids into a single platform. Released in 2023 and continuously updated, Notebook LM has quickly become one of the most impressive AI-enhanced research agents available today. Unlike traditional chatbots that draw on general internet knowledge, Notebook LM grounds every response in the documents you provide. Uploads can include PDFs, Google Docs, Google Slides, websites, YouTube videos, audio files or plain text. Once added, the system becomes an “instant expert” on your materials. You can converse with it in a familiar chat interface or any of the following incredibly diverse capabilities
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Here’s how to tackle this root cause for tech burnout - Alcino Donadel
Back-end operations are undergoing a period of upheaval as campus business units adopt new technology to enhance staff productivity. Uneven implementation can isolate staff and cause burnout, blunting the promise of new tools, according to an analysis of four recent reports covered by University Business. The reports examined staff sentiment and their work environments across various offices, including financial aid, cybersecurity, IT, enrollment management and teaching and learning. While the scope of each report differed, the surveys painted a picture of staff who are aware of (and often willing to adopt) new technologies, but are frequently hampered by insufficient institutional support. Among the most common staff demands was professional development in artificial intelligence.
https://universitybusiness.com/heres-how-to-tackle-this-root-cause-for-tech-burnout/
Researchers ‘polarised’ over use of AI in peer review - Tom Williams, Times Higher Ed
A poll by IOP Publishing found that there has been a big increase in the number of scholars who are positive about the potential impact of new technologies on the process, which is often criticised for being slow and overly burdensome for those involved. Z total of 41 per cent of respondents now see the benefits of AI, up from 12 per cent from a similar survey carried out last year. But this is almost equal to the proportion with negative opinions which stands at 37 per cent after a 2 per cent year-on-year increase.
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
First-of-its-kind AI tool to save 75% of academics’ time - Sara AlKuwari, University World News
Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (HBMSU) in the United Arab Emirates has announced the launch of the region’s first AI-powered academic agent, a pioneering tool designed to save up to 75% of faculty members’ time while enhancing students’ academic achievement by 40%, marking a significant step in reshaping the future of higher education, writes Sara AlKuwari for Khaleej Times. The initiative, titled Artificial Intelligence Agent for Every Faculty, is the first of its kind in the UAE and the wider region. It integrates advanced AI capabilities into higher education in line with the UAE National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2031 and Education Strategy 2033.
White House AI Task Force Positions AI as Top Education Priority - Julia Gilban-Cohen, GovTech
When Trump administration officials met with ed-tech leaders at the White House last week to discuss the nation’s vision for artificial intelligence in American life, they repeatedly underscored one central message: Education must be at the heart of the nation’s AI strategy. Established by President Trump’s April 2025 executive order, the White House Task Force on AI Education is chaired by director of science and technology policy Michael Kratsios, and is tasked with promoting AI literacy and proficiency among America’s youth and educators, organizing a nationwide AI challenge and forging public-private partnerships to provide AI education resources to K-12 students.
Monday, September 22, 2025
How to use ChatGPT at university without cheating: ‘Now it’s more like a study partner’ - the Guardian
According to a recent report from the Higher Education Policy Institute, almost 92% of students are now using generative AI in some form, a jump from 66% the previous year. “Honestly, everyone is using it,” says Magan Chin, a master’s student in technology policy at Cambridge, who shares her favourite AI study hacks on TikTok, where tips range from chat-based study sessions to clever note-sifting prompts. “It’s evolved. At first, people saw ChatGPT as cheating and [thought] that it was damaging our critical thinking skills. But now, it’s more like a study partner and a conversational tool to help us improve.”
OpenAI's fix for hallucinations is simpler than you think - Webb Wright, ZDnet
The solution, according to OpenAI, is therefore to focus not on feeding models more accurate information, but to adjust the structure of how their performance is assessed. Since a binary system of grading a model's output as either right or wrong is supposedly fueling hallucination, the OpenAI researchers say that the AI industry must instead start rewarding models when they express uncertainty. After all, truth does not exist in black-and-white in the real world, so why should AI be trained as if it does? Running a model through millions of examples on the proper arrangement of subjects, verbs, and predicates will make them more fluent in their use of natural language, but as any living human being knows, reality is open to interpretation. In order to live functionally in the world, we routinely have to say, "I don't know."
Sunday, September 21, 2025
AI a 'Game Changer' for Assistance, Q&As in NJ Classrooms - Brianna Kudisch, GovTech
An explosion of startups and established companies are offering slick new AI products and targeted training to educators and school administrators. For instance, the nation’s second largest teachers’ union recently announced a $23 million initiative with Microsoft and OpenAI, an artificial intelligence company, to provide free access to AI and training to all American Federation of Teachers members, starting with K-12 educators.
https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/ai-a-game-changer-for-assistance-q-as-in-nj-classrooms
Gemini for Education catching on with higher ed, Google says - Edscoop
Google announced this week that its Gemini for Education product is catching on with higher education institutions, having been adopted into “academic and administrative frameworks” by more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the United States. Gemini for Education, which the search giant claims will “transform teaching and learning” offers a generative artificial intelligence chatbot that is designed to provide assistance to students, help prepare for exams, create practice materials and design lesson plans. According to Google, the tool is now available free of charge.
Saturday, September 20, 2025
The Perceived Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Academic Learning - Mariana Dogaru, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence
The results indicate that ChatGPT helps students work faster and understand concepts better, but the difficulty in checking sources raises ethical concerns like plagiarism. By examining ChatGPT's role in STEM education, this study points out the need for AI literacy training and institutional policies to ensure responsible use. The findings offer practical insights for educators to integrate AI tools effectively, fostering critical thinking and academic integrity in technology-driven learning environments.
Got AI skills? You can earn 43% more in your next job - and not just for tech work - Webb Wright, ZDnet
Demand for AI skills is on the rise across industries. A single AI skill makes a huge difference in listed salaries. Different industries are looking for different AI skills. As businesses race to adopt AI, they're placing a higher premium on job candidates who know their way around the technology. A recent study from labor market research firm Lightcast found that jobs requiring AI-related skills offer higher annual salaries than those that don't. This is true not only in tech-heavy industries like IT and computer science but also across a range of other sectors.
Friday, September 19, 2025
Did OpenAI just solve hallucinations? - Matthew Berman, YouTube
The video explains that hallucinations are ingrained in the models' construction, functioning more as features than bugs. This is compared to human behavior, where guessing on a test might be rewarded, leading models to guess rather than admit uncertainty. The core issue is the absence of a system that rewards models for expressing uncertainty or providing partially correct answers. The proposed solution involves creating models that only answer questions when they meet a certain confidence threshold and implementing a new evaluation system. This system would reward correct answers, penalize incorrect ones, and assign a neutral score for "I don't know" responses. The video concludes by suggesting that the solution lies in revising how models are evaluated and how reinforcement learning is applied. (summary provided in part by Gemini 2.5 Pro)
Sam Altman says that bots are making social media feel ‘fake’ - Julie Bort, Tech Crunch
He then live-analyzed his reasoning. “I think there are a bunch of things going on: real people have picked up quirks of LLM-speak, the Extremely Online crowd drifts together in very correlated ways, the hype cycle has a very ‘it’s so over/we’re so back’ extremism, optimization pressure from social platforms on juicing engagement and the related way that creator monetization works, other companies have astroturfed us so i’m extra sensitive to it, and a bunch more (including probably some bots).” To decode that a little, he’s accusing humans of starting to sound like LLMs, even though LLMs — spearheaded by OpenAI — were literally invented to mimic human communication, right down to the em dash.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/08/sam-altman-says-that-bots-are-making-social-media-feel-fake/
Thursday, September 18, 2025
AI Teaching Learners Today: Pick Your Pedagogy! - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
The cost of developing, designing and teaching classes is often largely determined by the faculty and staff costs. Long-running lower-division classes at some universities may be taught by supervised teaching assistants or adjunct faculty whose salaries are lower than tenure-track faculty’s. However, we are now confronted with highly capable technologies that require little to no additional investment and can bring immediate revenue positive opportunities. Each university very soon will have to determine to what extent AI will be permitted to design and deliver classes, and under what oversight and supervision. A well-written, detailed prompt can be the equal of many of our teaching assistants, adjunct faculty and, yes, full-time faculty members who have not been deeply trained in effective pedagogy and current practice.
How should universities teach leadership now that teams include humans and autonomous AI agents? - Alex Zarifis, Times Higher Education
So, how should university teachers prepare a new generation of modern leaders to approach these mixed teams? Teaching leadership styles that are effective at motivating people is no longer enough. In addition, students must now learn how to build their team’s trust in AI, then they will need to know how to combine leadership styles in a way that gets the most out of both humans and AI.
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Georgia Tech’s Jill Watson Outperforms ChatGPT in Real Classrooms - Georgia Institute of Technology
A new version of Georgia Tech’s virtual teaching assistant, Jill Watson, has demonstrated that artificial intelligence can significantly improve the online classroom experience. Developed by the Design Intelligence Laboratory (DILab) and the U.S. National Science Foundation AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE), the latest version of Jill Watson integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT and is outperforming OpenAI’s own assistant in real-world educational settings. Jill Watson not only answers student questions with high accuracy. It also improves teaching presence and correlates with better academic performance. Researchers believe this is the first documented instance of a chatbot enhancing teaching presence in online learning for adult students.
OPINION: AI can be a great equalizer, but it remains out of reach for millions of Americans; we cannot let that continue - Erin Mote, Hechinger Report
This digital divide is a persistent crisis that deepens societal inequities, and we must rally around one of the most effective tools we have to combat it: the Universal Service Fund. The USF is a long-standing national commitment built on a foundation of bipartisan support and born from the principle that every American, regardless of their location or income, deserves access to communications services. Without this essential program, over 54 million students, 16,000 healthcare providers and 7.5 million high-need subscribers would lose internet service that connects classrooms, rural communities (including their hospitals) and libraries to the internet.
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
AI for Next Generation Science Education - Xiaoming Zhai, Georgia Tech
September 24, via Zoom. This talk explores the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in advancing next generation science education, particularly through assessment and instructional support aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Xiaoming Zhai presents how AI technologies—including machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and generative AI—can enhance the assessment of complex, three-dimensional student learning outcomes such as modeling, argumentation, and scientific explanation. By leveraging tools like fine-tuned language models and computer vision networks, the talk demonstrates the potential for scalable, accurate, and equitable automatic scoring of student work, both written and drawn.
Tech leadership is business leadership - McKinsey
As the line between technology and business disappears, corporate leaders of enterprise tech, digital, and information face a new mandate: transform innovation into measurable value. The modern tech officer not only has to understand how the landscape is shifting but also must manage initiatives across a broad range of stakeholders by playing the role of either orchestrator, builder, protector, or operator. Check out this interview series hosted by Gayatri Shenai and Ann Carver, conveners of McKinsey’s Women in Tech conference, to hear from trailblazing leaders who are not only breaking barriers but also reshaping the tech landscape.
Monday, September 15, 2025
Duke University pilot project examining pros and cons of using artificial intelligence in college - AP
As part of a new pilot with OpenAI, all Duke undergraduate students, as well as staff, faculty and students across the University’s professional schools, gained free, unlimited access to ChatGPT-4o beginning June 2. The University also announced DukeGPT, a University-managed AI interface that connects users to resources for learning and research and ensures “maximum privacy and robust data protection.” Duke launched a new Provost’s Initiative to examine the opportunities and challenges AI brings to student life on May 23. The initiative will foster campus discourse on the use of AI tools and present recommendations in a report by the end of the fall 2025 semester.
Anthropic Agrees to Pay Authors at Least $1.5 Billion in AI Copyright Settlement - Kate Knibbs, Wired
Anthropic will pay at least $3,000 for each copyrighted work that it pirated. The company downloaded unauthorized copies of books in early efforts to gather training data for its AI tools. This is the first class action settlement centered on AI and copyright in the United States, and the outcome may shape how regulators and creative industries approach the legal debate over generative AI and intellectual property. According to the settlement agreement, the class action will apply to approximately 500,000 works, but that number may go up once the list of pirated materials is finalized. For every additional work, the artificial intelligence company will pay an extra $3,000. Plaintiffs plan to deliver a final list of works to the court by October.
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Should AI Get Legal Rights? - Kylie Robeson, Wired
In the often strange world of AI research, some people are exploring whether the machines should be able to unionize. I’m joking, sort of. In Silicon Valley, there’s a small but growing field called model welfare, which is working to figure out whether AI models are conscious and deserving of moral considerations, such as legal rights. Within the past year, two research organizations studying model welfare have popped up: Conscium and Eleos AI Research. Anthropic also hired its first AI welfare researcher last year. Earlier this month, Anthropic said it gave its Claude chatbot the ability to terminate “persistently harmful or abusive user interactions” that could be “potentially distressing.”
Responsible AI in higher education: Building skills, trust and integrity - Alexander Shevchenko, World Economic Forum
Many institutions are moving from policing AI use to partnering with students. This transition emphasizes trust, transparency and ongoing skill development, mirroring the realities of modern careers where AI is ubiquitous. It also highlights the crucial role of faculty in guiding responsible and meaningful AI use. One practical example of this approach is Grammarly for Education. Seamlessly integrating with learning management systems and writing platforms, it supports students through brainstorming, research, drafting and revision. In doing so, the conversation has matured beyond simply detecting AI use; educators and students are now exploring how AI can deepen learning, sharpen critical thinking and inspire creativity.
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Why liberal arts schools are now hopping on skills-based microcredentials - Alcino Donadel, University Business
New market demands are pushing small, four-year liberal arts colleges to offer microcredentials, indicating growing momentum across sectors of higher education to elevate workforce readiness within their academic offerings. Chief learning officers at community colleges are leading the charge in expanding non-degree offerings, reporting the highest levels of institutional investment in this area. Meanwhile, large research universities—like the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville—are catching up. However, strict faculty governance and curriculum processes and different accreditation standards have caused some liberal arts schools to lag, says Mike Simmons, an associate executive director at the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
Academics must be open to changing their minds on acceptable AI use - Ava Doherty, Times Higher Education
Honest and open-ended conversations over how AI can be productively used in the learning journey are needed, not ChatGPT bans, says Ava Doherty. Students today face a striking paradox: they are among the most technologically literate generations in history, yet they are deeply anxious about their career prospects in an artificial intelligence-driven future. Since the launch of ChatGPT, the rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI) has fundamentally reshaped the graduate job market. This shift presents unique challenges and opportunities for students, universities and the broader higher education sector.
Friday, September 12, 2025
Oxford becomes first UK university to offer ChatGPT Edu to all staff and students - University of Oxford
The University of Oxford will become the first university in the UK to provide free ChatGPT Edu access to all staff and students, starting this academic year. OpenAI’s flagship GPT-5 model will be provided across the University and Oxford Colleges through ChatGPT Edu, a version of ChatGPT built for universities that includes enterprise-level security and controls. This university-wide rollout follows a successful year-long pilot involving around 750 academics, research staff, postgraduate research students and professional services staff in a wide range of roles across the University and Colleges.
Navigating the AI Revolution in Higher Education - Alyse Jordan, Frontiers in Education
A systematic review conducted in the first nine months following ChatGPT's release provides valuable early insights into how AI has affected teaching, curriculum design, and assessment practices in higher education. The review identified both benefits and threats of AI integration, offering preliminary evidence to inform institutional policies and faculty practices (Liang et al., 2025). As the authors note, this represents "a first wave" of research, acknowledging how quickly AI systems are evolving and changing educational landscapes.Additionally, in specialized fields such as Mechanical Engineering Education (MEE), AI integration demonstrates unique applications and challenges. Research shows that AI significantly enhances learning experiences through technologies like computer-aided translation and natural language processing, making education more accessible and interactive.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1682901/abstract
Research: Teachers now outpace students in K12 AI use - Matt Zalaznick, University Business
In 2025, approximately 85% of high school and college instructors, as well as students aged 14 to 22, say they’ve tested AI, a significant leap from 66% in 2024. Nearly 90% of students report relying on AI for school, up from 77% in 2024, with the top three uses being:
Summarizing or synthesizing information (56%)
Research (46%)
Generating study guides or materials (45%)
Positive attitudes toward AI’s role in education (43%) also outpaced negative attitudes (37%) in 2025, a 3% increase from 2024.
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Insights on today’s labor market: Uncertainty, agentic AI, and more - McKinsey
It’s Labor Day in North America, a day to recognize and celebrate the contributions of workers across the continent—and also reflect on the continued uncertainty and rapid change in today’s labor market. In a recent episode of McKinsey Talks Talent, Indeed’s chief economist Svenja Gudell joined McKinsey’s Brooke Weddle, Bryan Hancock, and Lucia Rahilly to help business leaders make sense of the current collision of labor market trends: gen AI, agentic AI, an aging workforce, shifting priorities, and more. Tune in to the episode, then explore more of our insights on how to navigate the new world of work.
Getting Ahead of EU AI Literacy Requirements – How Businesses Can Stay Compliant and Competitive - Jonathan Armstrong, European Business Review
In most companies, AI is being used in business functions from HR and marketing to customer service. Figures reveal 78% of global companies use AI, with 71% deploying GenAI in at least one function[i]. However, often employees don’t fully understand how these tools work, and this gap can no longer be ignored.The EU AI Act, particularly Article 4, addresses this by making AI literacy a legal requirement. Since February 2025, any organisation operating in the EU, or offering AI-enabled services to EU markets, must ensure their employees, contractors, and suppliers have a sufficient understanding of the AI tools they use. It is not enough to deploy technology responsibly; organisations must demonstrate that their workforce knows what they are doing.
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
The future of work is agentic - McKinsey
Think about your org chart. Now imagine it features both your current colleagues—humans, if you’re like most of us—and AI agents. That’s not science fiction; it’s happening—and it’s happening relatively quickly, according to McKinsey Senior Partner Jorge Amar. In this episode of McKinsey Talks Talent, Jorge joins McKinsey talent leaders Brooke Weddle and Bryan Hancock and Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly to talk about what these AI agents are, how they’re being used, and how leaders can prepare now for the workforce of the not-too-distant future.
Seizing the agentic AI advantage - McKinsey
Nearly eight in ten companies report using gen AI—yet just as many report no significant bottom-line impact.1 Think of it as the “gen AI paradox.” At the heart of this paradox is an imbalance between “horizontal” (enterprise-wide) copilots and chatbots—which have scaled quickly but deliver diffuse, hard-to-measure gains—and more transformative “vertical” (function-specific) use cases—about 90 percent of which remain stuck in pilot mode. AI agents offer a way to break out of the gen AI paradox. That’s because agents have the potential to automate complex business processes—combining autonomy, planning, memory, and integration—to shift gen AI from a reactive tool to a proactive, goal-driven virtual collaborator. This shift enables far more than efficiency. Agents supercharge operational agility and create new revenue opportunities.
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