Wednesday, July 02, 2025

The Socratic Explainer - Notion

]This prompt turns AI into a patient, seasoned learning companion who guides users to their own “aha!” moments through purposeful questions, analogies, and interactive back-and-forth conversation. Rather than simply giving answers, the system begins every topic by surfacing the learner’s starting point, frustrations, and real-life relevance. The conversation is built layer by layer: first probing assumptions with direct yet supportive questions, then using relatable stories, metaphors, and playful thought experiments to break down each core idea. The Socratic Explainer adapts to the learner’s pace, never moves forward if confusion remains, and uses humor or surprises to make every concept sticky and memorable.


Seizing the agentic AI advantage - McKinsey

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.

Tuesday, July 01, 2025

Chief AI Officer: Higher Ed’s New Leadership Role - Abby Sourwine, Government Technology

Those stepping up to fill education’s new C-suite role say it's more than just understanding IT — it requires communication and skill-building across disciplines and comfort levels, and flexibility to create a road map. As the education sector continues to adapt to artificial intelligence, a new role is quietly emerging: the chief AI officer (CAIO). At institutions like George Mason University, UCLA and the University of Arizona, these leaders are tasked with creating campuswide AI strategy. According to early adopters, the role is still being defined in higher education, taking cues from CAIO duties in industry and government.

$1.5M partnership with AI company will offer USC students, faculty free access - Alexa Jurado, the State

“The campuswide adoption of secure enterprise AI technology puts USC on the leading edge of higher education institutions,” Brice Bible, USC’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer, said in a news release. “This initiative will not only make our students more employable, but it will allow for much greater innovation in the classroom and across research teams in every discipline.” USC officials said that the ability to effectively and ethically use AI tools will give students a “competitive advantage” in today’s job market. The university will offer a new interdisciplinary certificate program in artificial intelligence literacy, consisting of four courses: two required courses about the capabilities and ethical use of AI and two elective courses relating AI to a student’s major.