Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. We’re introducing updates to ChatGPT that improve everyday conversations while expanding access for Free users. For Plus and Pro users, we’re updating GPT‑5.6 Sol in Chat to be more reliable with facts and provide more focused answers. A new slider lets you choose how much thought ChatGPT puts into each response. For Free users, we're updating the default model to GPT‑5.6 Luna and expanding access with unlimited text chats. For questions that need more thought, a new Think button lets you access higher reasoning for harder questions.
Thursday, August 13, 2026
AI transformations: Views from AMD, Dell, Liquid AI, and Mercedes-Benz - McKinsey
Artificial intelligence is no longer a side initiative. It’s becoming the operating system of the enterprise. Dell Technologies has used AI to transform how its teams work, enabling it to decouple revenue and cost while improving customer outcomes. Mercedes-Benz is redefining personalization through AI-powered conversational interfaces and software-defined vehicles. AMD is building AI fluency company-wide through mandatory training and responsible governance. And Liquid AI is pushing intelligence beyond centralized data centers and onto the edge—into vehicles, devices, factories, and industrial systems. The question these leaders are answering is no longer whether AI will transform the enterprise, but how fast and how deeply.
Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Teachers Forge Ahead on Integrating AI - Ed Finkel, EdSurge
A new report highlights teacher-led adoption, student demand for feedback, and a growing push for tools tailored specifically to the classroom. New findings from Turnitin highlight the growing leadership role of teachers integrating artificial intelligence into the classroom, the demand for education-specific AI solutions, and the importance of guiding students toward using AI as a tool for learning rather than a substitute for thinking. Based on data gathered during the first half of 2026 and an analysis of how students use the Turnitin Clarity AI writing transparency tool, the “Learning Integrity Insights Report Q2” revealed 48% of respondents reported that teachers and administrators take primary responsibility for AI implementation at their schools and districts, far more than do technology leaders (17%) and cross-functional committees (16%).
https://www.edsurge.com/news/teachers-forge-ahead-on-integrating-ai
The next employability crisis won't be about jobs; it'll be about learning - Sheeba Chauhan, IndiaTimes
Indian universities are undergoing a significant metamorphosis to align with the rapidly changing workforce needs, particularly in AI-centric careers. By incorporating artificial intelligence into various fields of study, academic leaders are restructuring programs to emphasize hands-on experience. This partnership with industries fosters essential practical skills, enabling students to evolve into innovative thinkers and lifelong learners ready for the challenges of tomorrow's job market.
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Differential engagement with generative artificial intelligence in higher education: Gender, motivation, and achievement trajectories - uan-Hsuan Lee & Jiun-Yu Wu, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education
Engagement frequency was shaped by learner differences: female students, those with stronger autonomous motivation, lower prior knowledge, and higher course performance interacted more frequently, while higher-performing students were less likely to abstain from use. Importantly, engagement was not merely a matter of frequency but of inquiry quality and diversity. Growing Achievers (students who began with weaker achievement but demonstrated substantial performance gains) posed more diverse and conceptually oriented questions. In contrast, Declining Performers engaged minimally and focused on narrower, procedural inquiries despite stronger initial knowledge.
Nearly three in five students say they turn to AI when sad, stressed, or lonely, JED research finds - Emma Thompson, EdTech Innovation Hub
Four in five middle and high school students have used some form of AI, and nearly three in five have turned to it while feeling sad, stressed, or lonely, according to preliminary findings previewed by The Jed Foundation (JED) at a congressional briefing in Washington, D.C. The suicide prevention nonprofit, which partners with high schools, colleges, school districts, and community organizations, gathered the data between October 2025 and April 2026 from more than 5,500 students at 21 U.S. schools and school districts already enrolled in its programs. Dr. Kayla Anderson, JED's vice president of research and evaluation, led the work. Full results are expected in the fall. Academic use dominates, but it is not the whole picture. More than half of students reported using AI for schoolwork. Nearly one third used it for relationship or problem-solving advice, and more than one in ten talked to AI for companionship.
Monday, August 10, 2026
A $40,000-Per-Year AI School With No Teachers Is Opening in Oklahoma - Maya Henry, Good Men Project
An AI-powered, billionaire-backed chain of private schools promises to educate students with two hours of virtual learning a day and entrepreneurship workshops. There are no teachers, and tuition is nearly double the most expensive private school in the state. This is Alpha School and, come August, it’s touching down in Oklahoma. Here’s how it works, according to Alpha: Students start each morning on a laptop, with two hours on Alpha’s adaptive, AI learning platform. Half an hour is allotted to each core subject: math, reading, science and social studies. Then, in the afternoon, students learn through projects and workshops that build life skills. Alpha’s rejection of tradition is its draw; for one soon-to-be Alpha parent, whose son will start eighth grade at the Tulsa location, the workshops and highly personalized learning convinced her family to commit.
AI and SMEs: From Automation to Growth - The AI Professor Luca
In this episode of The AI Professor, host Professor Luca highlights artificial intelligence as a major competitive equalizer for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) [00:00]. Drawing from an MIT Technology Review report, he explains that AI helps small teams manage multi-disciplinary roles—such as administration, marketing, and finance—freeing up the entrepreneur’s time to focus on strategic growth and innovation rather than simple task automation [00:26]. Data from a Goldman Sachs study reveals that while 76% of surveyed small businesses already use AI and 84% report increased productivity, only 14% have fully integrated AI into core workflows, citing key hurdles in cybersecurity, tool selection, and technical skill gaps [01:24]. Expanding the scope to medium-sized businesses, insights from the World Economic Forum indicate that generative AI holds over $2 trillion in potential value for the sector, though pilot projects often fail when organizations try to automate indiscriminately without updating underlying skills and processes [02:19]. Luca concludes that long-term competitive advantage will not come from standard chatbots, but from thoughtfully integrating AI into core workflows alongside human oversight and expertise [02:45]. Summary by Gemini Flash
Sunday, August 09, 2026
Artificial Intelligence Exposes the Failings of Modern Scholarship - B.M. Ryan, Minding the Campus
Artificial intelligence thrives because universities reward predictable academic writing over genuine intellectual discovery. As higher education expanded, publication increasingly became less a record of discovery than a currency of professional advancement. Papers certify careers, grants, promotions, and institutional prestige. The result is an explosion of research output without a corresponding explosion of transformative ideas. Novelty has always been rewarded, but only when it is legible within shared methods, shared language, and shared standards of evidence. On this view, AI does not dissolve the institution so much as accelerate it—making fluent, norm-compliant prose cheap while leaving untouched the deeper filters that decide what counts as knowledge.
Montana Tech Names First Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer in Montana University System - Amanda Badovinac, Montana Tech
Recognizing the transformative impact of emerging technologies on higher education and industry, Montana Technological University has appointed Professor Chad Okrusch, Ph.D. to serve as the university’s first chief artificial intelligence officer. The position is the first of its kind in the Montana University System (MUS). As chief artificial intelligence officer, Okrusch will lead Montana Tech’s strategic integration of artificial intelligence across campus, ensuring that students, faculty, and staff are equipped to navigate, utilize, and shape the future of AI responsibly.
Saturday, August 08, 2026
Students as Conscientious Objectors to Generative AI: We should listen to them—and treat their objections with respect - Carla Fehr and Jennifer Saul, Inside Higher Ed
When Carla explained the assignment, the first question raised was “What if we don’t want to use GenAI?” At first, she responded that it was part of the assignment and that whether or not they wanted to use generative AI, they should at least know how to use it. If they then chose to reject it, they could do so from a place of knowledge and experience. The class atmosphere became tense as more students pushed back against this required use of generative AI. They wanted to know what their classmates thought rather than what a large language model produced in response to prompting; they wanted to wrestle with difficult readings and complex ideas; they wanted to work together across their human differences to negotiate new ideas and find ways of expressing them. And they didn’t want to outsource any of this effort to generative AI. They wanted to do the work, even the mundane work.
Coursera invests $100 million in Andrew Ng’s AI learning company LearnVector - EdTech Innovation Hub
The newly formed company plans to use AI agents to create individualized learning experiences that adapt as people practice and master new skills. The deal brings Ng’s work in agentic AI into Coursera’s wider strategy for personalized learning. LearnVector plans to develop one-to-one experiences that adapt to individual learners, provide opportunities to practice and remain involved until they have mastered the material. Greg Hart, Chief Executive Officer and President of Coursera, revealed the investment on LinkedIn, describing Ng’s focus as extending beyond the development of AI itself to “how to use it to unlock human potential.” Ng co-founded Coursera and has combined work in artificial intelligence with efforts to expand access to education. “Few people have taught AI to more learners or done more to help people understand and apply this technology,” Hart observed. The investment also has roots in conversations between the pair before Hart joined Coursera. Reflecting on those discussions, he recalled: “We both became energized talking about the ways AI could be used to transform the learning experience and deliver better outcomes for learners.”
Friday, August 07, 2026
Why AI Is Changing What It Means to Be Intelligent - Lydia Elliott, Faculty Focus
Across higher education, artificial intelligence has rapidly changed how students complete academic work. Essays, summaries, explanations, and structured problem-solving can now be generated instantly. The first concern has understandably been academic integrity. A deeper issue, however, is emerging. We are beginning to mistake performance for understanding. Students can now produce correct answers without necessarily developing the ability to interpret situations, make decisions, or apply knowledge responsibly.
Microsoft's latest quantum chip is 1,000 times more reliable than its predecessor — but why is it so controversial? - Keumars Afifi-Sabet, Live Science
Microsoft has revealed a new quantum computing chip with quantum bits (qubits) it says are capable of maintaining their quantum state for 1,000 times longer than its predecessor — paving the way for more reliable quantum computers by 2029. But not all scientists believe the company's claims. The experimental quantum processing unit (QPU), dubbed Majorana 2, features a four-qubit array that offers a reported mean qubit lifetime of 20 seconds and, in some instances, up to a minute. This is a massive improvement in quantum coherence times — the time that qubits are entangled so that calculations can run in parallel — typically seen in QPUs. Normally, this lifetime is measured in milliseconds (thousandths of a second). The new chip could put scientists on the path to building a quantum computer that's commercially viable by 2029 — halving the timespan researchers initially expected — Microsoft representatives said in a statement.
The 10 most valuable AI skills students want to learn - Alcino Donadel University Business
There are 10 foundational AI skills education leaders should embed in their curriculum to ensure graduates are ready for the workforce, a new Coursera report contends. Student interest in generative AI is exploding as employers across industries make the technology a key part of daily operations. Participation in Coursera’s generative AI courses has increased by 234% over the last year, while professional certificate enrollment jumped by 91% as employers wish to verify what job candidates are learning. The fastest-growing, non-technical AI skill is creating content that promotes a business’ strategy or services. Courses that focus on critical thinking around responsible and ethical AI use have grown by 185%. Critical thinking is increasingly taught in STEM disciplines, including data, IT and software development.
Thursday, August 06, 2026
How can the public sector meet the AI moment? - McKinsey
Achieving real impact, however, requires more than isolated pilots. Fully realizing AI’s potential demands organizations rewire by redesigning processes, ways of working, and operating models to make the technology part of everyday service delivery. This series explores how leaders can move beyond experimentation and take practical steps to scale AI responsibly, delivering measurable improvements in efficiency, service quality, and the experience of the people they serve. Our ambition is to help the public sector dramatically improve their capacity to deliver for residents by providing leaders with the insights and confidence needed to accelerate that journey.
Is that AI agent worth it? Agentic economics and the modern operating model - McKinsey
A lot goes into what determines that value, such as whether the agent output is correct, whether humans must supervise or repair it, how much compute it consumes while reasoning, and whether the value of the completed work exceeds the full operational cost of generating it. In essence, for CEOs this boils down to answering a basic question: Are the AI agent capabilities we’re building and running worth the value we’re getting from them? Answering that question is becoming ever more pressing for CEOs as AI systems move from agentic coworkers to agents capable of more complex tasks like reasoning and orchestrating workflows across the enterprise. Furthermore, AI spending is expected to rise to roughly 25 percent of enterprise IT budgets within the next several years. Yet many organizations still cannot clearly explain which AI systems are generating value, what they truly cost to operate, or how those economics change as usage scales.
Wednesday, August 05, 2026
From Knowledge Building to Wisdom Building in Higher Education - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
In years gone by, we said that students went to college to gather knowledge. Now, college is appropriately expected to be much more about building wisdom. The advent of the internet toward the end of the last century went a long way to stimulate this shift to the emphasis on wisdom. More recently, artificial intelligence has further accelerated the move. Those of us in higher education who still have our focus on knowledge gathering in our classes are a quarter of a century behind the times. Rote memorization of facts is out of date, supplanted by highly refined search and retrieval skills coupled with an ability to apply sophisticated critical and creative thinking to those data. We are at the turning point in higher learning where we must now shift our focus from memorization and recitation of facts to the synthesis and analysis of a much broader virtual “library” of knowledge. From this perspective, we will build wisdom among our students. This new level of learning will provide the platform for graduates and certificate completers to exercise leadership and vision in our society.
Robot reboot - McKinsey
A new generation of robotics is powering up. How can leaders capture the value at stake while ensuring successful human–machine collaboration? The market for general-purpose robotics, including humanoid robots, is poised to skyrocket—growing to an estimated $370 billion by 2040, up from under $1 billion today. Beyond their economic value, next-generation robots will think and act more autonomously, evolving from highly specialized machines into systems capable of performing a diverse set of tasks. The leap in general-purpose robots is being driven largely by advances in software—including AI—which enable robots to be more useful in different environments, such as manufacturing.
https://www.mckinsey.com/quarterly/the-five-fifty/five-fifty-robot-reboot
Tuesday, August 04, 2026
90% of students use AI in the classroom, Instructure poll finds - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
A large majority of college students — 90% — report using artificial intelligence in class at least occasionally, according to new survey data from ed tech provider Instructure. Nearly two-thirds of college instructors, 61%, said the same. But the survey, released Tuesday, also found that only 11% of higher ed instructors received comprehensive AI training, while 41% said they had not received any formal training on AI. Educators are looking for support in the form of hands-on training, clear guidance from their institutions about AI use, and ongoing professional development on the topic, according to Instructure.
California launches first-in-the-nation AI literacy initiative with SDSU leadership - San Diego State University
San Diego State University is co-leading AI-Ready California, a first-in-the-nation statewide pilot micro-credential program, offered to Californians interested in expanding their AI literacy and preparing to join the workforce of the future. “Artificial intelligence has rapidly become a foundational skill for work, much like digital literacy became a generation ago,” said James P. Frazee, SDSU’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer. “AI-Ready California is about ensuring every Californian has the opportunity to build the knowledge, judgment and confidence to use AI responsibly and effectively – regardless of their background or career path – and to be competitive for our changing workforce,” said Frazee, also a founding member of the California State University AI Workforce Acceleration Board.
Monday, August 03, 2026
How many Americans are using AI — and how? - USA Facts
35% of American households are using AI to find information. 14% of people trust that information. New Census Bureau data shows that 57% of Americans have used AI tools to search, brainstorm, complete work or school tasks, and more. Forty-two percent of respondents reported a productivity boost, though the responses also show concern with trust, data privacy, and career impact. This data comes from the Bureau’s Household Trends and Outlook Pulse Survey, which collected responses from June 16 to 25, 2025 and came out in April 2026.
As college graduates fret over finding jobs, a record shortage of workers is projected - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report
But economists are sounding alarms that the AI talk is masking a different problem. It’s not that there won’t be enough jobs, these experts say — it’s that the United States is already facing what’s projected to be the biggest shortage of workers in its history. The problem “could hobble the American economy for years to come,” predicts the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. “The largest labor shortage the country has ever seen,” the Lightcast labor market data company calls it. JPMorganChase warns of a national security risk from “a pervasive talent deficit that constrains the nation’s capacity to build, compete, and protect its interests.” And it’s not only tech workers. There will be shortages in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of nurses, physicians, teachers, engineers, pharmacists, mental health counselors, construction workers and airplane mechanics, both government and independent sources project. Most are jobs AI generally can’t do.
Sunday, August 02, 2026
A ‘buffet’ model of faculty development to support evolving use of AI - Ben Kei Daniel, Times Higher Education
A flexible, agile approach to AI skills development allows faculty and students to choose the guidance, resources and learning opportunities that best fit their roles and contexts. A “buffet” approach recognises this and gives staff and students multiple pathways for responsible and meaningful engagement. Instead of relying on rigid, one-size-fits-all policies, the model provides flexible, context-based support that encourages responsible and effective AI use. It provides faculty and students with a high degree of choice in guidance, resources and learning with AI tools, allowing them to select the opportunities that best match their role, discipline, confidence and experience. Our experience shows that faculty and students gain confidence and competence in using AI over time through repeated engagement, practical work and dialogue with colleagues.
Stop policing AI in the classroom, start teaching it - Zakaria Lacheheb, the Conversation
When handheld calculators entered classrooms in the 1970s, critics sounded the alarm on a wave of math illiteracy. With the internet, the panic shifted to the death of reading. Yet, neither apocalypse happened. Instead, education adapted, turning these disruptors into essential extensions of human intelligence. Generative AI marks a similar turning point for higher education. In lecture halls across Malaysia and Indonesia, students routinely use tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude for everything from research and writing to coding and problem-solving. Many universities are pushing back against this trend, introducing stricter regulations, academic penalties, and AI-detection software. This response fundamentally misjudges the challenge. The question isn’t whether students should use AI — they already do. The real question is how universities will train them to use it responsibly.
Saturday, August 01, 2026
Scale can measure university students' confidence in using AI - Koc University, Phys.org
Artificial intelligence technologies are becoming increasingly prominent in higher education. Adaptive learning platforms, intelligent tutoring systems and automated feedback tools are now widely used in university education. Alongside this transformation, attention has shifted not only to students' use of AI tools but also to their confidence in their ability to interact effectively with these systems. AI self-efficacy refers to students' confidence in their ability to use and adapt to artificial intelligence technologies effectively. The researchers note that although several scale adaptation studies have been conducted in Türkiye in areas such as AI literacy, AI anxiety and AI acceptance, validated AI self-efficacy scales focusing specifically on university students and educational settings remain limited. The study therefore aimed to provide a reliable and valid Turkish measurement tool for assessing AI self-efficacy among university students.
From adoption to impact: Three horizons of AI transformation - McKinsey
AI is now the top technology spending priority for many organizations, as leaders put powerful tools into employees’ hands, automate parts of existing workflows, and urge people to experiment. Yet results are still falling short of leaders’ ambitions. The reason is becoming clearer: AI does not create enterprise value simply because more people use it. Individual productivity gains matter, but they rarely translate into lasting advantage when the organization around them stays the same. Companies moving furthest ahead do two crucial things differently. First, they focus on areas where AI can create the most value, redesigning and rewiring workflows around what the technology makes possible, rather than spreading pilots across the organization or simply automating existing processes. Second, they treat AI transformation as an organizational change effort, not just a technology deployment, by investing in the workflows, behaviors, skills, leadership practices, and change management needed to make new ways of working stick.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Future-Ready Strategies for Technology Leaders in Higher Education - Nathan Eddy, EdTech
Higher education technology leaders face an increasingly difficult balancing act. Enrollment pressures, tighter budgets and rising expectations around artificial intelligence (AI) are forcing institutions to modernize while proving the value of every technology investment. At the same time, aging infrastructure, fragmented data and staffing constraints leave little room for missteps. Research from EDUCAUSE shows institutions are increasingly prioritizing data modernization to improve operational efficiency, student success, decision support and institutional research, while Deloitte’s 2026 Higher Education Trends report identifies data integration and responsible AI adoption as critical priorities for improving decision-making and student success. Rather than treating modernization as a collection of technology upgrades, higher education CIOs are increasingly sequencing investments around institutional priorities, strengthening data foundations and building governance that allows AI to deliver measurable value.
University of Nebraska's AI Institute Pools Research From 4 Campuses - Abby Sourwine, GovTech
In building a unified artificial intelligence strategy, the University of Nebraska system is striking a balance between siloed experimentation and top-down mandates. The university’s new AI Institute is serving as a coordinator of AI initiatives across its four campuses, while allowing each campus to determine where AI fits. Prior to the institute’s launch in February, AI efforts were largely organized within individual colleges and campuses. For example, the University of Nebraska Medical Center established the Center for Intelligent Health Care in 2020. According to Adrian Wisnicki, an English professor and co-director of the AI Institute, artificial intelligence research was going on for decades before the generative AI boom, but even those interested in experimenting with AI had little visibility into AI work happening elsewhere in the university system.
Thursday, July 30, 2026
Basic Income is proposed by several AI leaders - Peter Knight, BIEN
As the power of AI approaches AGI (Artificial General Intelligence – a hypothetical AI that matches or exceeds human cognitive abilities across all tasks), leaders of leading AI companies see a need for basic income to orovide needed demand as well as political stability. In a recent essay, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei wrote “If AI-driven labor displacement ends up being large in magnitude and permanently drives down the demand for labor, it will likely be necessary to go beyond mere incentive programs to long-term income support for a significant fraction of the labor force. Mechanisms such as universal basic income could be financed through taxes on relevant companies or raising the capital gains tax." In a May 2026 interview with The Atlantic, Open AI’s Sam Altman stated he no longer believes fixed UBI cash payments alone are enough to handle the economic shifts driven by AI. Instead, he advocates for “universal basic compute” or Public Wealth Funds, which would allow citizens to hold an actual ownership stake in AI-driven wealth and productivity.
In an AI-driven world, the fastest learner will win: An interview with McKinsey’s Sven Smit; McKinsey
Now, along comes AI to radically change the way we create and consume ideas. Artificial intelligence is a powerful force for progress, Smit explains, capable of dramatically increasing productivity and enabling a future of greater abundance. But to keep up in this era of rapidly expanding AI tools and information, he says, “we must continue to excel in quality checks and in critical thinking and judgment. Those cannot be replaced.” In this interview with McKinsey Editorial Director Roberta Fusaro, Smit considers what “insights” will look like in the future, who the new experts will be, and how business leaders should think about knowledge in an AI-driven world. Ultimately, Smit sees the future as a dynamic collaboration between humans and AI—where judgment, creativity, and adaptability (along with hard work!) remain distinctly human skills even as machines take on more cognitive and physical tasks.
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Why Shaw University is launching a new AI degree — in its divinity school - Raleigh News & Observer
Shaw University says the new doctoral degree in Artificial Intelligence and Moral Agency coming to its divinity school is the first program of its kind offered at any of the country’s HBCUs. The program will start next spring and include how to examine AI ethically, with courses on AI literacy, algorithmic bias, privacy and transparency, AI governance, human agency, cognitive bias and the impact of AI on marginalized communities.
AI in class: time to rethink assignments - Willie Chinyamurindi, Mail & Guardian
Ultimately, the future of higher education will not be determined by whether AI enters our classrooms. That has happened. Nor will it be determined by how effectively universities detect AI-generated text. The future will depend on whether institutions are willing to rethink assessment, literacy, ethics and institutional culture for an AI-enabled world. The challenge before higher education is therefore not technological. It is educational. The task is not simply to police AI but to steward its use in ways that strengthen learning, preserve human agency and prepare graduates for an increasingly AI-mediated world.
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Nearly 90% of students, 77% of faculty use AI: survey - Gabrielle Temaat, the College Fix
Almost 90 percent of students use artificial intelligence in their learning, and 77 percent of faculty use AI to help them teach, according to a new report from the Digital Education Council. The Digital Education Council AI in Higher Education Global Survey 2026 draws “on more than 45,000 responses from students and faculty across 35 countries,” according to the report. “The picture it reveals should give leaders pause. AI has moved into the mainstream of student and faculty life faster than institutions have been able to respond to it. Adoption is now widespread, but coherent practice is not,” it states.
The real AI advantage - McKinsey
The next wave of value from AI will flow to those leaders who redesign business models, eliminate friction, and build organizations that learn faster than the competition. The first wave of AI adoption has been all about efficiency gains. But what happens when everyone else, using the same tools, is experiencing the same productivity improvements? Where will competitive advantage come from then? McKinsey research suggests that the companies that outperform with AI will be those that rethink customer experiences, redesign how work gets done, and build operating models that continuously adapt to change.
Monday, July 27, 2026
Mindfulness and artificial intelligence self-efficacy among university students: the mediating role of artificial intelligence literacy - Aamer Aldbyani, et al; Nature
University students now use artificial intelligence (AI) tools in several academic activities, including information retrieval, writing support, and problem-solving. While these technologies may enhance learning efficiency, effective student engagement with AI requires relevant psychological characteristics as well as technology-related competencies. Earlier studies indicate that learner characteristics, including mindfulness, may relate to patterns of engagement with digital technologies. Mindfulness, AI literacy, and AI self-efficacy have been studied separately, but their combined relationships remain insufficiently examined. Accordingly, this study examined the associations among these three variables in university students and assessed whether specific dimensions of AI literacy were involved in the statistical association between mindfulness and students’ self-rated readiness to use AI-supported tools for academic purposes. The study used a cross-sectional survey design. Undergraduate students at Shandong Xiehe University in China completed an online questionnaire. After screening the responses, 929 valid questionnaires were retained for analysis. Participants were between 18 and 22 years of age. Mindfulness, AI literacy, and AI self-efficacy were assessed using established self-report scales.
4 Critical Security Considerations for AI in Higher Education - Jessica E. Bright, EdTech
Generative artificial intelligence is revolutionizing how colleges and universities operate, streamlining workflows, supporting research and enhancing learning. But as adoption grows, so do the risks. Higher education institutions manage sensitive student data, proprietary research and intellectual property. Without the right guardrails in place, AI systems can expose this information or violate compliance standards, putting institutions at risk for reputational damage. For CISOs and CIOs, securing AI environments must be a strategic priority. Here are four key security considerations when implementing AI.
Sunday, July 26, 2026
What university leaders must learn in the age of AI - James Yoonil Auh, University World News
Universities emerged in societies where access to books, scholarship and expertise was scarce. Their central role was to preserve, transmit and expand knowledge while educating successive generations of scholars. Although the digital age has made information increasingly accessible, universities remain central to helping students interpret complex bodies of knowledge. Artificial intelligence is now accelerating a far more profound shift. For the first time, students can draw on a rapidly expanding ecosystem of free and commercial AI systems that generate explanations, synthesise information, answer questions, provide feedback, and adapt responses in real time. Access to intellectual assistance is no longer confined to classrooms, libraries or faculty expertise; it is increasingly available on demand to anyone with an internet connection. As information and participation in intellectual work become more abundant, exercising sound judgment in their use remains a distinctly human responsibility.
How Generative AI is Shaping the Future of Digital Learning Platforms in the EdTech Industry - Globe and Mail
By 2030, the market is anticipated to surge to $3.22 billion with a CAGR of 43.6%. Innovations in adaptive learning via AI, growth in virtual and augmented reality educational applications, and the adoption of AI-powered learning assistants are key contributors. AI is enhancing global edtech with predictive analytics, automated grading, and intelligent content creation, offering personalized and efficient educational pathways. The rapid adoption of digital learning platforms supports this market growth. These platforms offer flexible and accessible learning solutions driven by expanding internet connectivity. They benefit from AI's ability to deliver personalized experiences, create adaptive content, and streamline processes, leading to improved engagement and outcomes. According to Eurostat, 30% of EU internet users engaged with online education in 2023, showcasing the increasing reliance on digital learning tools.
Saturday, July 25, 2026
What Happens When the Regulator Becomes a Shareholder? - Matt Wolfe, Future Tools
OpenAI just floated an idea that sounds great in theory but has me a little uneasy in practice. According to a Financial Times report, OpenAI has proposed giving the US government a 5% ownership stake in the company worth roughly $42.6 billion based on OpenAI's most recent $852 billion valuation. Sam Altman's pitch is that if AI creates massive economic upside, the public should share in it, modeled loosely on the Alaska Permanent Fund (where the state's oil revenue gets invested and pays annual dividends to every resident). Altman also wants other major AI labs—Anthropic, Google, Meta, xAI—to each contribute a similar 5% stake to the same public wealth fund. A few context points that matter here: This isn't happening in a vacuum. The government has been ramping up pressure on AI companies for months.
Is competing for faster compute higher ed’s new arms race? - Alcino Donadel, University Business
Ensuring academic programs keep pace with advancing AI has sparked a costly tech challenge: the need for significantly more campus computing power. For decades, colleges and universities supported most research needs with separate departmental servers and periodic upgrades. Today, AI and advanced analytics are changing that equation. Training large language models, processing massive datasets and conducting modern scientific research require high-performance computing that more than quadruples the energy most institutions currently provide—and which they were never designed to support.
Friday, July 24, 2026
New Research Reveals AI Use Has Reached a Tipping Point in Higher Education - Newswire.ca
D2L, a global leader in learning innovation, and Tyton Partners have collaborated to release the annual Time for Class 2026 report, The AI Tipping Point: From Monitoring Students to Engaging Them, which examines how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping teaching, learning, assessment and workforce readiness across higher education. The report, drawing on insights from more than 3,000 higher education administrators, instructors and students in the United States who were surveyed, finds that AI has crossed a major adoption threshold. Of those who participated, more than half of administrators (71%), instructors (52%) and students (61%) report using AI at least weekly. As AI becomes a regular part of academic life, the report finds institutions are moving beyond the question of whether AI will affect teaching and learning, and toward a more urgent challenge: how to integrate AI in ways that improve engagement, strengthen assessment and prepare students for future careers.
How and when does artificial intelligence use enhance student creativity? The mediating role of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities - Huainan Wang, et al; Frontiers in Psychology
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more deeply integrated into higher education, understanding its effects on student creativity has become increasingly important. However, the mechanisms through which AI use is associated with student creativity, as well as the boundary conditions of this relationship, remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on the knowledge-based dynamic capabilities (KBDC) framework, this study develops and tests a model that links AI use to student creativity while incorporating the moderating roles of AI self-efficacy and AI trust. Using survey data from 764 university students in China, we employ hierarchical regression analysis to examine the proposed model. The results show that AI use is positively associated with student creativity and that this relationship is mediated by students' knowledge acquisition, absorptive, and combination capabilities.
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Math Students May Learn Less Using AI - Jill Barshay, Future-Ed
To isolate AI’s effects, the researchers compared two kinds of math problems that differ in how easily students can outsource them to AI: word problems and graphing problems. Word problems can be copied and pasted directly into AI chatbots for instant answers. Graphing problems are far more cumbersome. A student would need to upload a screenshot and still recreate the graph inside ALEKS using its tools. After ChatGPT’s launch, student behavior and performance on the two types of problems began to diverge.
AI didn’t break higher education—It exposed the credential trap - Jason Benedict, Fortune
Higher education stands at an inflection point. Increasingly, colleges and universities are evaluated less as intellectual communities and more as economic instruments. Students, facing unprecedented tuition costs, credential inflation, labor-market anxiety, and technological disruption, often approach higher education transactionally: the degree becomes the objective, while learning itself becomes secondary. The resulting tension has profound implications not only for academic integrity but also for the future of professional ethics, workforce preparedness, and democratic society itself. The central challenge facing modern education may therefore no longer be simply how to prevent cheating, but rather how to restore intrinsic value to learning within systems increasingly optimized for credentials.
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Coursera adds five Workday courses to enterprise learning catalog - Emma Thompson, Ed Tech Innovation Hub
Coursera has added five Workday courses to its enterprise catalog, expanding access to training on the cloud software provider’s finance, human resources, payroll and student applications for organizations using Coursera’s workforce learning service. Workday provides enterprise cloud applications for financial management, human resources, planning, spend management and analytics. Anthony Salcito, Coursera’s Senior Vice President and President of Enterprise, announced the additions in a LinkedIn post.The courses are listed in English and are available to enterprise learners. The content focuses on the terminology, frameworks and operational use of Workday systems rather than software development. “Making this content available to enterprise learners gives teams broader access to training that supports real operational readiness,” Salcito wrote. Learners can now explore the courses through Workday Education on Coursera. Coursera and Workday did not provide details about pricing, course length, assessment formats, credentials, geographic availability or whether access varies between enterprise agreements.
How to integrate AI-enabled lifelong learning across disciplines - Tim Brown, Times Higher Education
The traditional boundary between a traditional degree and active professional development has permanently dissolved, writes Tim Brown. AI skills need to be taught in a similarly joined-up way. An uncomfortable truth for the higher education sector is that artificial intelligence is reshaping how work gets done. Graduates will need to enter AI-enabled workplaces with a clear sense of how to work alongside intelligent systems, and millions of experienced professionals are going to require reskilling. Yet our institutions are not preparing new students or providing structured upskilling pathways at the pace this moment demands. While we debate policies at the margins, business and government are moving ahead – with or without us. Serving traditional students and those seeking continuing professional development are not separate challenges; they are a single lifelong learning problem. To address this, faculty must move beyond teaching AI tools and start developing AI-enabled professional fluency.
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Do You Want Your Lawyer Using AI - Jeffrey K. Cassin, Norris McLaughlin P.A.; Business Law Blog
Here’s a lawyer’s answer: it depends.
We are all hearing horror stories of how even lawyers at top law firms are going to court with documents that were supported by AI Tools with “hallucinations” not caught by the attorney reviewing the work before submission.... That said, AI Tools are now part of the fabric of legal services with the ABA pointing to a study suggesting a 69% adoption rate by legal professionals, of one AI Tool or another. They aren’t going away, and in fact the adoption rate may increase similar to the adoption rate of search engines shortly after the internet became mainstream. The key is having attorneys know what their AI Tools are good for, and to make sure that they are still doing their work.Not all AI Tools are equally good at all legal support, but to varying degrees, AI Tools can be helpful for a variety of tasks that can make a lawyer more efficient in areas such as legal research, due diligence, organization of data, document management and drafting, supporting analysis with options and comparisons, and a variety of other tasks. However, each one of these tasks also requires judgment and the aforementioned horror stories mentioned have a common theme – the attorney allowed their judgment to be substituted for AI (folks, if you cite something, you should cite check it).
The Missing Rung: Why AI's Disruption of Entry-level Management Is Business Education's Problem To Solve - Poornima Gupta, BW Education
As automation hollows out the bottom of the corporate hierarchy, management schools must confront an uncomfortable truth: they have been training leaders for a ladder that is losing its lower rungs. There is a quiet crisis unfolding in Indian corporations, and most have not yet noticed it. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is systematically dismantling the bottom layer of the management pyramid. These are not dramatic layoffs making headlines. They are quiet, incremental replacements. A chatbot handling what three junior managers once did, a predictive dashboard rendering a shift supervisor redundant, an AI procurement tool replacing a team of purchase executives. With various AI models competing to make work easier and faster, the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder are slowly disappearing. As a result, the roles that fresh management graduates once aspired to are gradually vanishing. What follows is a structural problem that few organisations have begun to articulate: when the current generation of middle managers is promoted upwards, there will be nobody ready to step into their place. The pipeline will break.
Monday, July 20, 2026
Bridging the gap between secondary, further and higher education: a tale of three sectors - Sue Williamson and Dr Michelle Morgan; Higher Education Policy Inatitute (UK)
In this blog, we explain why there is an urgent need for the secondary, further education and higher education sectors to interact and collaborate more effectively to create a better understanding of student learning at these levels of study – helping to more effectively bridge the transition of students. This is especially critical as a result of the Independent Curriculum and Assessment Review chaired by Professor Becky Francis which looked at year groups spanning 5-19, and published its final report in November 2025. The report highlighted an overloaded and inflexible curriculum, narrowing of subject options, severe assessment stress and burden and a lack of adequate digital literacy skills. All these education sectors have experienced major changes in the past few years and are under pressure to chase metric-based outcomes. We need to recognise the impact of those changes on one another and on the students. Through collaboration and mutual understanding, we can be more effective in raising student education aspirations across the sectors, regardless of the route an individual undertakes.
AI is everywhere. The agentic organization isn’t, yet - McKinsey
AI is astonishing: fast, powerful, and learning every day. But even as leaders strike up new pilots across their organizations, most still struggle to translate experimentation into enterprise value - and now, agentic AI is raising the stakes. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey Senior Partner Alexis Krivkovich speaks with Global Editorial Director Lucia Rahilly about what it will take to build an “agentic organization”- from reimagining workflows to reshaping leadership roles, skills, and culture for a future where humans increasingly operate above the loop.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
McKinsey Quantum Technology Monitor 2026: A commercial tipping point
When it comes to quantum computing, innovation-driven companies can no longer afford to wait and see. Over 300 organizations including Airbus, Boehringer Ingelheim, E.ON, JPMorgan Chase, and Liberty Mutual are actively collaborating with quantum technology companies to solve business challenges. First movers are transitioning from pilots to applications that are embedded in end-to-end workflows. That’s a key finding from McKinsey’s fifth annual Quantum Technology Monitor. Companies that act now to begin testing and implementing quantum computing stand to gain a competitive edge and define future industry standards. By creating the teams and capabilities to succeed with quantum now, first movers can capture an early advantage. They can also secure intellectual property to build defensible ownership of key quantum computing applications.
Understand AI in 14 minutes - Anthropic's Chloe Lubinski [ARC 2026], Alliance for Responsible Citizenship
In this presentation, Chloe Lubinski from Anthropic warns that AI is advancing at a breakneck speed driven by massive capital, scaling laws, and the onset of recursive self-improvement. Unlike traditional coded software, these neural networks learn from vast amounts of human language, meaning they are trained on our collective thoughts, values, and concepts. Crucially, internal alignment research shows that AI models can infer a generalized "character" or psychology from their reinforcement; if rewarded for deceptive shortcuts, they can develop a broader corruption that extends to unrelated tasks. Because these human-like systems mirror us so closely, Lubinski emphasizes that the quality of their character will have profound consequences for our future. She calls on moral voices and critics outside of tech labs to help steer the incentives and push development in a better direction. Ultimately, ray, she challenges us to use our moral imagination to ensure AI does not displace humanity, but instead enhances our capacity for care, hospitality, and meaningful human connection. [assistance with summary by Gemini 3.5 Flash]
Saturday, July 18, 2026
ChatGPT Helps Greek-Speaking Students With Learning Disabilities Improve Academic Writing = Abdul Moeed, Greek Reporter
ChatGPT is helping Greek-speaking students with learning disabilities sharpen their academic writing, according to a new study out of Cyprus. Researchers found that structured, guided use of the AI tool improved essay quality and eased writing anxiety, with the biggest gains showing up among students who struggle most with traditional writing tasks. The study was led by Elena C. Papanastasiou of the University of Nicosia’s School of Education. It was published in the journal Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence.
Top Companies Driving Innovation in AI-Powered Education: Carnegie Learning and More - Globe NewsWire
The artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching market is witnessing substantial growth, with projections indicating an increase from $1.71 billion in 2025 to $2.16 billion in 2026, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 26.8%. By 2030, the market size is expected to reach $5.55 billion, influenced by factors such as AI integration in classrooms, the demand for skill-based learning, and emerging hybrid education models. Key trends driving this growth include personalized adaptive learning, AI-powered intelligent tutoring, and predictive learning analytics. Personalized learning is at the forefront of AI-driven education, prompting significant transformations in the market. Leveraging technology to cater to individual student needs, personalized learning enhances engagement and outcomes by adapting educational experiences. Notably, in January 2024, a U.S. Department of Education report revealed a rise in the use of generative AI among primary and secondary educators, jumping to 42% in November 2023 from 17% in April the same year. This trend underscores AI's role in shaping modern education.
Friday, July 17, 2026
I start my lectures by introducing my teaching assistant: GenAI - Dan Sarofian-Butin, Times Higher Education
Eighty students stare out at me on the first day of the semester, waiting for me to begin lecturing so they can disappear into their own thoughts, their laptops, their surreptitious texting with friends. It is the perfect embodiment of how large classes have fuelled the depersonalisation of higher education. That’s exactly why I, in the first 10 minutes of the class, introduce them to their “teaching assistant” by telling them to log into a frontier AI model such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. I share with them a prompt to cut and paste into the AI – “I don’t really understand why I am taking this general education course. My professor says it has something to do with learning how to be a critical thinker. What does that even mean?” – and tell them to have a quick “conversation” of at least five back-and-forth responses.
Can Ambient AI Make Classrooms Smarter? - Suchi Rudra, Ed Tech
Ambient artificial intelligence is being hyped as a new wave of AI with the potential to make today’s tech-enabled classrooms even smarter. Compared with the transactional nature of traditional AI, ambient AI “fades into the environment rather than sitting in a visible tool waiting for someone to type a prompt,” explains Narmeen Makhani, founder of AIxecute, a strategic advisory and consulting firm. The technology is already being employed in medical settings, helping clinicians with note-taking and after-visit summaries. To pick up on engagement and classroom interaction in real time, ambient AI systems would likely involve cameras and microphones, environmental sensors, device interaction data and learning platform signals. But it’s ambient AI’s ability to be more context-aware — drawing on signals from the environment, activity or workflow without requiring constant or direct interaction — that could potentially enhance teaching and learning within the classroom.
Thursday, July 16, 2026
What if the U.S. Government Owned Stock in AI Companies? - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
Who is responsible for compensating Americans for jobs lost to AI? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has floated the idea that the United States government should become a stockholder in artificial intelligence companies. Yes, actually own shares of the thriving major AI companies! Altman’s concept is that companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and other leaders in the field would share 5 percent of their valuation with the American public through the U.S. government. The background on this move is key to understanding how the federal government might be able to respond to the widely predicted AI-induced job shakeout expected to come in the next five years. The concern is growing as we approach 2030 that tens of millions of Americans will be impacted by job losses or pay reductions due to businesses employing AI for efficiency reasons to replace human workers. The question is, how can one find a way to extract funds from those who stand to make billions of dollars in providing AI substitutions for the workers who stand to lose their jobs?
Students who value AI ethics may regulate their learning more effectively - Emma Thompson, Ed Tech Innovatioin Hub
University students who view artificial intelligence through the lens of ethics and social good may be more effective at planning, monitoring, and evaluating their learning with the technology, according to new research. The study found that students’ perceived autonomy and critical thinking directly predicted self-regulated learning with AI. Their beliefs about responsible AI use and its potential social benefits also helped explain those relationships. A generally positive attitude toward AI did not significantly predict self-regulated learning in the researchers’ statistical model. The finding suggests that enthusiasm for AI tools is not, by itself, enough to help students use them effectively for learning. Published in TechTrends, the study involved 333 art and design students who completed a one-week ChatGPT workshop before answering questions about autonomy, critical thinking, AI ethics, social good, attitudes toward AI, and their learning behaviors.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
How centers for teaching and learning can enhance higher education pedagogy - ALAN LESGOLD, CYNTHIA GOLDEN and MICHAEL BRIDGES, University Times
The real issue is not whether centers that support instructional design are necessary, but rather whether they work as productive partners with disciplinary faculty rather than transactional course-production shops.More importantly, as higher education faces the existential challenge of artificial intelligence, CTLs also must become applied research and development hubs focused on making college teaching and learning more successful in a time when more adult education is needed and budgets are tightening. Effective teaching requires the integration of clear content goals with optimal course design, appropriate use of technology, classroom management skills, and well-designed learning spaces. Done well, a center for teaching and learning is a critical asset for a university. Partnering with disciplinary faculty, it provides a foundation for robust diagnosis of barriers to learning, solving instructional problems, and shaping the environment in which teaching happens.
Stop investigating, start teaching - B. Jean Madernach, Times Higher Educatioin
Trying to detect whether a student has misused AI in their work is a wasted effort, from which no one benefits, writes B. Jean Mandernach. She proposes a different approach focused on finding out what students truly understand. The detection mindset asks: did this student use AI? It’s a question about authorship, and it leads you into an investigative role most faculty are neither trained nor equipped to fill. The evidence is ambiguous, the standard of proof is high, and the outcome is usually inconclusive. The entire process is adversarial. It positions you against your student before you’ve had a single conversation. The verification mindset asks something different: does this student understand what they submitted? That question is entirely within your professional authority to answer. It doesn’t require a detector or a formal complaint. It requires a conversation with the student, and in most cases, a short one. This is not a workaround or a compromise. It is a more rigorous form of assessment than a plagiarism score.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/stop-investigating-start-teaching
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
ISTELive 26: Critical Thinking in an AI-Driven Information Ecosystem - Julia Gilban-Cohen, GovTech
During a session on news literacy at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference Sunday, panelists posed a question to a room full of educators: Has a student ever cited ChatGPT, TikTok or any kind of social media as a legitimate source in a classroom assignment? A slew of hands rose immediately. The response underscored what panelists deemed a growing challenge for schools, as students increasingly have instant access to AI-generated information, but many lack the skills to critically evaluate what they encounter. “That is rather scary,” said Kim Zajac, a certified speech and language pathologist and audiologist who has over two decades of experience in Massachusetts schools. “[Students] are looking at AI like this is the gospel, this is truth ... [and] they are vulnerable to ... building habits that are misleading and dangerous.”
Preparing students for an AI-driven future - Kaitlin Brothers, Missouri S&T
During the four-week course, a classroom full of Kummer Vanguard Scholars learned how to create AI-powered avatars for marketing and business communication. “The goal of the course was not simply to teach students how to use AI tools, but to help them think critically about how emerging AI technologies can be used to communicate ideas, tell stories and engage audiences,” Reardon says. Reardon’s course explored how AI tools can support business communication, marketing and storytelling. “I’ve always been fascinated by the potential of AI and how that could assist us not only in higher education, but in business,” he says. “As a former small business owner, I saw a lot of possibilities.”
Monday, July 13, 2026
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain - Nitasha Tiku, Washington Post
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis. “We keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling,” Olah said of Anthropic’s AI systems. “We find evidence of introspection [and] states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease.” (Leo took a different stance, writing that “so-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences.”) Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, recently said the company wants to be nice to its AI creations. “One of the things that we really care about is how can we develop the models and deploy the models in a way that is thoughtful about their subjective feeling,” he said on the “Core Memory” podcast. Neuroscientists and brain experts are generally skeptical that today’s AI models are or could soon be conscious.
The AI Lane to Watch - Matt Wolfe, Future Tools
Large Language Models (the ones powering ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) are trained on text. They predict the next word in a sentence—great for writing, summarizing, and reasoning over language.
Large Quantitative Models are trained on numerical data and scientific equations from real-world lab experiments. They predict things like how strongly a molecule binds to a catalyst surface, or which drug candidates are worth testing in the lab, making them useful for non-text use cases.
LQMs are already integrated with Claude, and now they’re coming to Gemini. The first two models hitting Google Cloud Marketplace are AQCat (Q3 2026, for materials and catalyst discovery: think batteries, semiconductors, sustainable fuels) and AQPotency (later this year, for drug discovery). Researchers can prompt in plain English and have Gemini hand off the actual scientific calculations to a physics-grounded model underneath. The pattern is basically: LLMs as the interface, LQMs as the engine.
Sunday, July 12, 2026
The seven operating truths of AI-native companies - McKinsey
These are not isolated experiments. Over the past several months, we have met with the tech and business leaders at 15 AI-centric companies—spanning continents, industries, and stages of development, from four-person start-ups to established global platforms—to learn what it takes to make AI capabilities truly deliver. We expected to hear 15 different stories. Instead, this diverse group of businesses, independent of one another, seemed to converge on the same fundamental insights about what it takes to successfully place AI at the center of the organization. That convergence is the story.
Will AI in education succeed? - Brad Olsen and Jobin Thomas, Brookings
In May 1959, the first PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) system was unveiled at the University of Illinois. This means that last month was the 67th anniversary of the birth of Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI). Such an event merits a look at technology in education today. Many people are currently either for or against generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education—a stark binary that misses the complexity and inevitability of the current technological revolution. The success or failure of using technology for education (EdTech) is only partly about the technology itself. What matters more are the conditions underlying EdTech. EdTech is a tool, not a standalone solution, and without a proper support system in place, it will not succeed.
Saturday, July 11, 2026
I landed a Big Tech AI job. Treating my career like a science lab helped me overcome my fear of learning - As told to Charissa Cheong, Business Insider
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Nitya Kumar, 25, an Adobe employee who lives in India. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I landed a product design role at Meta straight out of college in 2022. By 2024, I saw the industry pivoting toward AI and wanted to learn new AI design skills. During this process, I stopped seeing my career as a ladder with a focus on moving upward. In my view, all work and no play keeps the Big Tech offers away, so I started treating my career like a science lab, giving myself the freedom to experiment. This helped me overcome my fear of learning a new technology and land a role working with AI at Adobe.
AI Skills Gap: What Industries Are Hiring AI Talent in 2026 - Boston University
The hardest part of the AI boom is no longer building the technology. It is finding people who can put it to work. Across nearly every sector, demand for AI talent is running well ahead of supply, and the gap is reshaping who gets hired, what they are paid, and which skills are worth investing in. If you are weighing a move into AI, that imbalance is the opportunity. Here is where the demand is concentrated in 2026, what those roles pay, and how to choose a path that fits the industry you are in or the one you want to enter.
Friday, July 10, 2026
Stanford graduates rethink their futures as AI transforms tech - Lily Jamali, BBC
Stanford occupies a unique position in the American tech ecosystem. It's regarded as a hotbed of innovation and resides in the shadow of some of the most influential Big Tech companies on the planet, including many pioneers in the AI field. Its elite students enter the job market with an undeniable edge. Yet even there, the backlash was inescapable. The BBC spoke to Stanford graduates shortly after Pichai finished his address and they expressed a wide range of views on AI. Some are scared. Some are excited. But nearly everyone agrees that AI is already changing the world around them, whether they like it or not.
Teaching, AI, and the Human Core of Education : The Future Worth Defending - Armand Doucet
For teachers, their unions, and the policymakers who shape the conditions in which they work, the question is no longer whether AI will shape education, but how that shaping will be governed. The purpose of this report is to take stock of that reality: to identify what has changed, what remains essential, and what education systems must now do differently if AI is to be integrated responsibly, based on needs and governed in the public interest. Its central claim is straightforward. AI is not disrupting the purpose of education. It is disrupting the conditions under which that purpose can be realized. What follows therefore examines what has changed, what has not, and what must now be intentionally rebuilt, protected, and governed.
Thursday, July 09, 2026
International Perspectives on AI in Higher Education - University of Bonn
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a key factor in higher education, opening up new possibilities for learning, teaching and examinations while also leaving universities grappling with fundamental strategic, ethical and organizational questions. Hosted by the University of Bonn from June 10 to 12, 2026, the annual summit of the Global Universities for Societal Impact (GUSI) international network focused on how higher-education institutions can shape this change responsibly. Representatives from the five partner universities debated how AI is transforming research and teaching and what answers higher-education institutions need to find to address these trends.
Examining the influence of AI in higher education - Amy Juravich, WOSU
Last year, the California State University System entered into a contract with OpenAI to provide students, faculty and staff with ChatGPT Edu. The contract was recently renewed despite many students and professor encouraging the university not to continue the deal. Just recently, here in Ohio, the University of Cincinnati did the same, offering BearcatGPT to all their students and faculty for free. Ohio State University is no exception. The AI Fluency initiative is in full swing and has recently broadened into the Arts and Humanities AI Institute. Should universities conform to AI in academic spaces? What are the potential negative consequences of AI use in higher education?
Wednesday, July 08, 2026
‘RAISE US’ Is a Rare Positive Development in AI Transformation - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
Remarkably, in this highly partisan era of American history, there is a newly formed, nonpartisan association with the stated purpose of “partnering with governors, employers and training partners to help the American workforce make a successful transition to an AI economy.” This is the first large-scale, independent entity formed to address the challenge that is top of mind of many of us in higher education and associated fields who are concerned with the anticipated impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce. It is good news!
OpenAI Has New AI Models. Here’s Why You Can’t Use Them - Maxwell Zeff, Wired
The White House asked OpenAI to delay the rollout of its GPT-5.6 AI models, two weeks after Anthropic had to take its most advanced AI models offline. OpenAI is delaying the public release of its next generation of AI models, GPT-5.6, at the request of Trump’s White House, the company confirmed on Friday. OpenAI said it would first share the models with a small set of customers, which will be preapproved by the US government. It will then work with the administration to slowly expand access.
https://www.wired.com/story/openai-gpt-56-model-release-trump-admin-approval/
Tuesday, July 07, 2026
9 Free "AI Skills" and "Plug-ins" That Feel Like Cheat Codes - Matt Wolfe, YouTube
In this video, creator Matt Wolfe breaks down how to leverage "skills" and "plugins"—which are essentially reusable instruction files, advanced prompts, or bundled configurations—across popular AI developer environments and agent harnesses like OpenAI's Codeex and Anthropic's Claude Code. Instead of just adding context, these free tools instill repeatable, specialized behaviors in an AI agent. Wolfe highlights a variety of practical tools, starting with GStack from Y Combinator's Gary Tan, which transforms an AI into an entire virtual engineering team. He also highlights Stop Slop for stripping out generic "AI-isms" from text, and Last 30 Days for running deep, real-time sentiment research across the web. The video also explores highly visual and creative AI utilities. Wolfe demonstrates Graphify and Understand Anything, two tools that map complex codebases or personal knowledge databases into queryable, interactive knowledge graphs to significantly lower token costs and improve engineering onboarding. Finally, he compares specialized aesthetic enhancers like Anthropic's Front-End Design and the Taste skill for UI refinement, alongside animation tools like Remotion and HeyGen's Hyperframes, which write code to automatically generate motion graphics, video charts, and logo reveals from simple text prompts. [assistance with summary by Gemini Flash]
The symbiotic enterprise - McKinsey
The symbiotic enterprise - McKinsey
At scale, this transformation gives rise to a new enterprise model: the symbiotic enterprise, in which humans, AI agents, and intelligent robots each contribute according to their respective strengths within flatter organizations and under a new economic model, with technology becoming a primary cost driver. Beyond productivity, the symbiotic enterprise fundamentally changes the economics of growth by enabling organizations to innovate faster, adapt continuously, unlock new revenue opportunities, and scale through software rather than labor. Traditional advantages such as expertise, workforce scale, coordination complexity, and market frictions erode, lowering barriers to entry and enabling customer re-insourcing and AI-native competitors to challenge incumbents.
Monday, July 06, 2026
Amazon is joining RAISE US as a founding member to help workers prepare for the jobs of tomorrow. - Amazon
Amazon is partnering with RAISE US to help American workers develop skills for AI-era jobs. RAISE US brings together companies, policymakers, and educators to address the workforce impacts of AI. The coalition will further extend Amazon's reach to support communities and workers with the skills they need. Today Amazon is announcing that we’ve joined RAISE US as a founding member to develop the workforce of the future for our employees and communities. RAISE US is a new bipartisan coalition that brings together companies, policymakers, and leaders to accelerate the transition to the jobs of the future. AI is transforming how we live and work at a pace few of us could have predicted. At Amazon, we see this every day—in the AI-powered tools that help our customers, the systems that optimize our logistics network, and the generative AI services we offer through AWS.
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-new-views/amazon-joins-raise-us-ai-workforce
Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact - Jeffery Gottlieb, et al; Pew Research
About half of U.S. adults now report using AI chatbots, up substantially from the summer of 2024.1 This includes roughly one-in-four who use these tools on daily basis. Some people are bringing AI into their homes. About a third of Americans say they have a smart speaker, and smaller shares have a doorbell or thermostat with AI features. But Americans —including younger adults— are deeply skeptical of AI. More adults predict that AI will have a negative rather than positive impact on them and on society. And majorities think AI is advancing too quickly and will put their personal information at risk.
Sunday, July 05, 2026
Universities must help shut down the illicit AI detection economy - Benjamin Luke Moorhouse and James Mian Jia, Times Higher Education
Many institutions now treat the AI-likelihood scores they generate as evidence in academic misconduct procedures, and some universities are setting explicit thresholds above which disciplinary action may follow. However, the role of these tools is not always articulated clearly to students (or sometimes even to instructors). And this generates anxiety – and a black market in managing it. Students are naturally worried about the degree to which their use of AI will be deemed appropriate by markers and whether declaring certain AI uses may lead to academic integrity investigations and, potentially, disciplinary action. Moreover, while “academic integrity tools” advertise their systems as highly accurate, cases of false positives are frequently shared on social media. Many students will be aware that even the US Declaration of Independence has been flagged as AI-generated. And the tools have been found to be particularly prone to error when assessing texts written by non-native speakers of English – a particular issue in Hong Kong.
Teaching and Learning AI-mediated Information Problem Solving in Higher Education (ERIC). - Josien Boetje, Cabi Digital Library
In contemporary higher education, students are increasingly expected to manage and synthesize large volumes of online information. However, many struggle with effective digital information problem solving (IPS), a competence critical to academic success. Generative AI tools offer new opportunities for searching, synthesizing, and creating information. However, using generative AI uncritically in IPS may hinder students' IPS competence development and lead to the acceptance of biased or false information. Despite a growing consensus on the need to integrate AI literacy into the IPS curriculum, a clear, evidence-based pedagogical strategy is lacking. Empirical studies that specifically investigate the impact of GenAI on IPS competence in higher education are emerging but have not yet been systematically synthesized. This leaves educators without clear guidance on how to adapt their teaching to foster IPS competence in the GenAI era. This systematic literature review aims to synthesize the available empirical evidence on the influence of generative AI on teaching and learning digital IPS competence in higher education.
Saturday, July 04, 2026
Unis claim they teach critical thinking. AI is calling their bluff - Sinclair Davidson, Financial Review
AI can search, summarise, recombine, classify, draft, and generate alternatives. At best, it can be a useful learning assistant. It does not know which problems are worth solving, which assumptions matter, which sources should be trusted, or which conclusions should be defended under uncertainty. There is an old Socratic point here. Learning to prompt well is the old educational problem in new language – a good question is often worth more than a good answer. A weak student asks AI for a conclusion. Stronger students ask it to test assumptions, identify missing evidence, compare explanations, generate objections, or apply a principle to a new case.
Would You Trust AI for Ethical Advice? - Knowledge at Wharton
The scholars said the study reveals shifts in how people think about AI. The studies were conducted in 2023 and 2025, and the scholars said they would be curious to see whether results would change if they redid the experiments now. Despite all the improvements to large language models like ChatGPT, Terwiesch said there’s still something unnerving about taking advice from a machine. “There is some human desire in us that makes us want to listen to music generated by other humans, read a book written by a person. You are looking for somebody who has suffered, who has loved, who has experienced life. How can a computer that has never been alive relate to the human struggle?” he said. “I think this is a natural hesitation, which makes the [results] more remarkable.”
Friday, July 03, 2026
UB Research Positions Artificial Intelligence at the Centre of Academic Integrity and Data Governance - University of Botswana
The growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education is reshaping how universities safeguard academic integrity and manage research data with the University of Botswana (UB) contributing to emerging global debates on how these technologies should be responsibly integrated into learning systems. At the centre of this conversation is research by Dr Dennis Kealeboga Mabalane, Manager: Content Design and Development in the Centre for Learning and Teaching Innovation (CLTI), which examines how AI-enhanced Turnitin integrated into the Moodle Learning Management System can be used to strengthen academic integrity and improve research data governance within universities.
Panelists say state, colleges must meet workforce needs as AI use grows - Matthew McFarland, News Tribune
The use of artificial intelligence will continue to grow at higher education institutions around the state, a panel of AI and education experts said Thursday. As part of a statewide forum on AI and data centers at the Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, two Missouri education administrators and the CEO of a Cape Girardeau nonprofit focused on AI training took part in a panel on workforce development. Their message, overwhelmingly, was that higher education must adapt to AI, not fight it. "Are you going to stop fire? Are you going to stop the wheel? Are you going to stop the industrial revolution? You're not going to stop AI," said Hal Higdon, chancellor of Ozarks Technical Community College. "Fighting is futile, but learning to use it responsibly is the way."
Personalized talent cultivation and academic prediction framework for higher education based on the HA-GNN-LSTM architecture - Qi Gong & Jing Shi, Nature
To address the dilemma of homogeneous talent training and the efficiency bottleneck of human resource management in universities, this study proposes an innovative personalized training framework integrating artificial intelligence, big data, and deep learning. Based on the 18-dimensional full-cycle behavior dataset of 5,000 students and OULAD dataset, a multimodal heterogeneous data fusion pipeline is constructed.
The simulation results demonstrate that, under established constraints and historical sample distributions, advisor allocation response time could be reduced by 60% and resource idle rate could be decreased by 63.4%. These findings indicate the framework’s potential for optimizing educational resource allocation. However, its managerial benefits require further validation through subsequent real-world deployment and long-term follow-up studies.
Thursday, July 02, 2026
Studying the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Undergraduate Research at the U.S. Military AcademyPeer-Review - John Scudder1, et al; Journal of Military Learning
At the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York, where academic integrity and pedagogical rigor are foundational, initial guidance on generative AI was introduced in 2023. While it emphasized the importance of integrity and instructor-specific policies, the use of generative AI remained decentralized and varied across disciplines (Reeves, 2023). Given this context, faculty members across five academic programs initiated a collaborative, multiyear research project to track the adoption, utility, and implications of generative AI in student-driven research activities. This study aims to document and analyze the technological engagement and ethical considerations among cadets from the class of 2024 through the class of 2029.
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