Exploring a space-based, scalable AI infrastructure system design - Travis Beals, Google Resarch

Project Suncatcher is a moonshot exploring a new frontier: equipping solar-powered satellite constellations with TPUs and free-space optical links to one day scale machine learning compute in space. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a foundational technology that could reshape our world, driving new scientific discoveries and helping us tackle humanity's greatest challenges. Now, we're asking where we can go to unlock its fullest potential. The Sun is the ultimate energy source in our solar system, emitting more power than 100 trillion times humanity’s total electricity production. In the right orbit, a solar panel can be up to 8 times more productive than on earth, and produce power nearly continuously, reducing the need for batteries. In the future, space may be the best place to scale AI compute. Working backwards from there, our new research moonshot, Project Suncatcher, envisions compact constellations of solar-powered satellites, carrying Google TPUs and connected by free-space optical links. This approach would have tremendous potential for scale, and also minimizes impact on terrestrial resources.

https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalable-ai-infrastructure-system-design/

UPenn Expands Educator AI Training Program With Google - Government Technology

A $1 million grant from Google will help scale a one-district pilot program on teaching with artificial intelligence, offered through the University of Pennsylvania, up to five districts and regions. A University of Pennsylvania program training K-12 teachers and administrators on artificial intelligence best practices is scaling up, thanks to a $1 million investment from Google. The funding, announced Oct. 28 by the university’s Graduate School of Education, will allow the university’s Pioneering AI in School Systems (PASS) program to expand to five school districts and regions across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware beginning in December. Launched in spring 2025, PASS was first piloted in the School District of Philadelphia. It provides professional development to help educators and administrators understand and implement AI responsibly in schools

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/upenn-expands-educator-ai-training-program-with-google

Use GenAI to slow down and reflect more deeply - Sam Illingworth, Times Higher Education

GenAI is often presented to academics as a tool for acceleration. Marking can be automated, lecture slides summarised in seconds and drafts polished at speed. The message is clear: do the same work, only faster. Yet, this framing risks reinforcing an already unsustainable level of efficiency. What if, instead of speeding up, GenAI could help us slow down? Used thoughtfully, these tools can encourage reflection, deepen dialogue and make space for richer connections between research and teaching. Slowness here is not inefficiency. Instead, it is the deliberate act of reclaiming attention for what matters most: curiosity, questioning and collaboration.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/use-genai-slow-down-and-reflect-more-deeply

Opinion: Higher education needs to catch up with AI, not run from it - Teresa Butzerin, Willamette Collegian

Given that AI will only become more prevalent in our lives, universities should be taking more formal steps to make sure graduating students are literate in the practical uses of AI and leave college with a well-rounded understanding of the ethical issues surrounding it. While the threat AI poses to academic integrity has caused it to become villainized in higher education, it’s time for universities to prioritize teaching students to use AI as a tool because these large language models are only getting faster, smarter and more omnipresent. A recent study conducted by OpenAI — the company that owns ChatGPT — revealed that over one-third of adults aged 18-24 in the U.S. use the chatbot regularly, and a significant portion of this use is related to the completion of schoolwork.

https://www.willamettecollegian.com/post/opinion-higher-education-needs-to-catch-up-with-ai-not-run-from-it

Teaching with AI: From Prohibition to Partnership for Critical Thinking - Michael Kiener, Faculty Focus

However, banning AI will not prevent students from using it, whether for nefarious or appropriate purposes. Instead, it may deny students a chance to practice and engage with AI in an educational setting where they and faculty can explore its full potential collaboratively. This kind of restrictive thinking is based on two flawed assumptions: that AI cannot support student thinking and that students will only use AI to cheat. The challenge is not to police every use, but to reframe our approach from one of prohibition to one of collaborative partnership.  This shift in perspective allows faculty to systematically integrate AI into courses in a developmentally appropriate manner. By centering policies on learning, we can encourage students to take an active, self-regulated approach to their education. This reframes the focus from dishonesty to autonomous learning, emphasizing academic values while scaffolding meaningful assignments that challenge student thinking. 

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/teaching-with-ai-from-prohibition-to-partnership-for-critical-thinking/

Initiative will help Indiana colleges and universities address AI challenges and opportunities for their institutions and students - Lilly Endowment

Lilly Endowment Inc. is launching a new initiative, Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education (AIHE), to support Indiana colleges and universities in their ongoing efforts to address the implications of a rapidly evolving technology in their institutions and the lives of their students. Through AIHE, the Endowment is allocating a total of up to $500 million in funding to eligible higher education institutions in Indiana. The aim of the initiative is two-fold: to help Indiana colleges and universities 1) consider more fully the challenges and opportunities that artificial intelligence (AI) presents for their institutions and their students, and 2) develop new or enhance existing strategies and programs to improve their students’ education opportunities and outcomes and their preparation to prosper in the workplace and life in a future that will be increasingly shaped by AI.

https://lillyendowment.org/news/artificial-intelligence-in-higher-education-initiative/

Transitioning to the Agentic University 2026–27 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

Most of us in higher education are now familiar with generative AI bots, where you formulate a prompt and get a reply. Yet, we are now beginning the advancement to agentic AI, the autonomous 24-7 project manager. The dramatic enhancement in the capability of AI as it moves from bots to agents will bring about efficiencies and have a far greater impact on the day-to-day operations, strategies and effectiveness of our institutions. We will become less expensive, more personalized and more responsive to students and employers. Those are big claims, so for this column, I turned to my personal assistant, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro on Nov. 1, 2025, to help me with identifying the pathway to those outcomes.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/11/12/transitioning-agentic-university-2026-27

Redefining Learning: How Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence are Transforming Education - digitalLEARNING Network

We are living through one of the most profound transformations in the history of education. The industrial model of learning is being replaced by a new paradigm that values experience, adaptability, and creativity. For decades, education has been structured around the transfer of information; now, we are moving toward the cultivation of intelligence itself — human and artificial. The convergence of Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not simply an enhancement of traditional teaching tools. It represents a cognitive revolution. These technologies allow us to simulate reality, model complexity, and personalize learning in ways previously unimaginable. Education is no longer confined to the classroom or the screen; it becomes an immersive journey — emotional, sensory, and experiential.

https://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2025/11/redefining-learning-how-virtual-reality-and-artificial-intelligence-are-transforming-education/

Can creativity still exist in a world of Artificial Intelligence? - Bailee McLeod, Avondale

Our relationship with Artificial Intelligence (AI) is ever evolving. The continual advancement of the technology means our interactions with it can change, almost daily. What started as asking Siri to ‘call mum’ evolved to asking Google to ‘turn down the air conditioning’, to now asking Chat to make an itinerary of our three-week Euro vacation, or craft a work email for us. All time saving tasks, but what are the costs of integrating AI into our lives? We spoke with four leading creatives on Avondale University’s academic staff to explore the effects and impact Artificial Intelligence has on creativity, art and our human experience.

https://www.avondale.edu.au/news/op/can-creativity-still-exist-in-a-world-of-artificial-intelligence/

The change agent: Goals, decisions, and implications for CEOs in the agentic age - McKinsey Quarterly

Executives are fond of quoting hockey great Wayne Gretzky, who is credited with saying: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” This is sound business advice at one level. But that puck is moving a whole lot faster than it used to as agentic AI rapidly evolves. Move faster may seem tone deaf as CEOs and their senior teams struggle to see bottom-line value from early gen AI investments. Developing and scaling gen AI use cases have proven frustratingly challenging. Some executives remain unconvinced that AI agents will have a significant impact—at least in the short term—and have stepped back from their investments.1

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-change-agent-goals-decisions-and-implications-for-ceos-in-the-agentic-age

Opinion: Ray Kurzweil’s Predictions — AI Today and Tomorrow - Jim A. Jorstad, GovTech

To prepare students for a world so saturated with technology, it has arguably never been more important to speculate on the possibilities of our future, and how we can prepare for it. In business, science and education, we are now continually searching for clues about the future of artificial intelligence. In October 2006, I had the opportunity to listen to computer scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil at the EDUCAUSE conference as he spoke about “The Acceleration of Technology in the 21st Century: the Impact on Education and Society.” The future-facing ideas he shared back then still have relevance to education and our daily lives, and I’d like to highlight some of them.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/opinion-ray-kurzweils-predictions-ai-today-and-tomorrow

Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities - Rachele Dini, LA Review of Books

The Guardian published “A Machine-Shaped Hand” on March 12, a day after Altman first shared it on X. A callout link at the top of the page directed readers to Jeanette Winterson’s response, “OpenAI’s Metafictional Short Story About Grief Is Beautiful and Moving”—a not-so-subtly titled piece that, while making an unconvincing case for the story’s literary value, provided a solid argument for automating reviews via such gems as “Good writing moves us”; “What is beautiful and moving about this story is its understanding of its lack of understanding”; “AI reads us. Now it’s time for us to read AI”; and “Literature isn’t only entertainment. It is a way of seeing.” The story itself is about an LLM prompted to write an original metafictional literary work about AI and grief.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/literature-is-not-a-vibe-on-chatgpt-and-the-humanities/

EDUCAUSE ’25: 3 Questions to Guide Higher Ed AI Strategy - GovTech

Many colleges and universities see the need for an institutional AI strategy, but there are so many variables involved that it can be hard for IT leaders to know where to begin. Addressing an audience of such leaders at the 2025 EDUCAUSE annual conference in Nashville this week, Managing Director Alexander Brown of technology consulting firm Attain Partners said as a baseline, each project should align with the institution’s mission and consider the different levels of trust among various user groups, their capacity for training and education, and infrastructural capacity to accelerate other projects in line with the rapid pace of emerging technology.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/educause-25-3-questions-to-guide-higher-ed-ai-strategy

President Aoun outlines roadmap for higher ed in the age of AI - Cyrus Moulton, Northeastern

Artificial intelligence can do your research and write your term paper. It cannot, however, interpret your professor’s expression when you hand that paper in. Northeastern University President Joseph E. Aoun said higher education’s role is to teach how to navigate such a situation. “The value of higher education is to raise those questions about the balance between human agency and AI agency,” Aoun said during a keynote address in Toronto on Tuesday. “What’s at stake for us in higher education is to remain relevant in the age of AI.”

https://news.northeastern.edu/2025/10/31/joseph-aoun-toronto-ai-summit/

Data Points - McKinsey

How does AI learn to see, hear, and think all at once? As multimodal gen AI models evolve rapidly, they are reshaping how organizations process and generate information—from interpreting complex visuals to answering questions across multiple formats and data types. Costs are dropping, capabilities are multiplying, and the business implications are profound. Think you’re up to speed on multimodal AI? Test yourself with this month’s Data Points questions

https://www.mckinsey.com/Featured-Insights/McKinsey-Data-Points

In a First, AI Models Analyze Language As Well As a Human Expert - Steve Nadis, Quantum Magazine

Among the myriad abilities that humans possess, which ones are uniquely human? Language has been a top candidate at least since Aristotle, who wrote that humanity was “the animal that has language.” Even as large language models such as ChatGPT superficially replicate ordinary speech, researchers want to know if there are specific aspects of human language that simply have no parallels in the communication systems of other animals or artificially intelligent devices. In particular, researchers have been exploring the extent to which language models can reason about language itself. For some in the linguistic community, language models not only don’t have reasoning abilities, they can’t.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-ai-models-analyze-language-as-well-as-a-human-expert-20251031/

Navigating AI Adoption in Higher Ed: College Presidents on Student Learning vs Operational Efficiency - University Business

While generative AI tools like ChatGPT have dominated headlines and sparked urgent conversations about academic integrity and pedagogy, many institutions are simultaneously exploring AI’s potential to revolutionize back-office operations—from enrollment management and advising to financial planning and facilities management. In this candid conversation, three college presidents share how they’re navigating these parallel paths of AI adoption. Should institutions prioritize AI investments that directly impact student learning experiences, or focus on operational efficiencies that can free up resources and improve service delivery? Are these truly competing priorities, or can they be part of a unified strategy?

https://universitybusiness.com/navigating-ai-adoption-in-higher-ed-college-presidents-on-student-learning-vs-operational-efficiency/

Why open source may not survive the rise of generative AI - David Gewirtz, ZD Net

We live in an astonishing technology-based world, fueled by and dependent on software. That software provides our networks, our security, our financial transactions, our supply chain management, and, of course, the generative AI systems that are top of mind for just about everyone. But where does that digital infrastructure come from? Nearly all of it is based on free and open source software, what the industry calls FOSS. This is code built by enormously collaborative communities, driven by coders who use the fruits of FOSS and who also actively contribute back bug fixes and improvements.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-open-source-may-not-survive-the-rise-of-generative-ai/

New front door to the internet: Winning in the age of AI search - McKinsey

Half of consumers use AI-powered search today, and it stands to impact $750 billion in revenue by 2028–what is your strategy and activation plan for gen AI engine optimization? Hot on the heels of the ascent of social media as a means of researching and buying products, consumers are quickly defaulting to AI-powered search (through both AI-powered apps like ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and Claude, and Google’s AI Overview) to guide their choices, evaluate brands, and increasingly to discover new ones. About 50 percent of Google searches already have AI summaries, a figure expected to rise to more than 75 percent by 2028, according to trend analysis. Half of consumers polled in a McKinsey survey now intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines, with a majority of users saying it’s the top digital source they use to make buying decisions.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/new-front-door-to-the-internet-winning-in-the-age-of-ai-search

How to shift AI from a shortcut to a learning partner - Rudy Gonzalez, University Business

This creates a significant challenge for universities: how can they integrate AI in ways that support learning rather than replace it? The solution is not simply adding AI tools to coursework. Instead, institutions need a clear strategy, strong governance and ongoing faculty development to guide how AI is used in the classroom. Higher education leaders must also foster a culture of change, one that guides students, faculty, and staff to embrace the transformative power of AI over its perceived threats or challenges.Do you have a chief AI officer? The first step in building a strategic framework involves establishing dedicated leadership to oversee AI implementation and use across campus.

https://universitybusiness.com/how-to-shift-ai-from-a-shortcut-to-a-learning-partner/