Over the past few months, AI technology, the surrounding discussion, and learning in the worldwide education community have continued to advance. Back in March, we shared three critical focus areas that continue to guide us as we work towards bringing AI innovation to education. Today, we’re thrilled to announce our recent collaborations with New York City Public Schools, PowerSchool and Kahoot!; highlight additional AI-powered experiences; and introduce a new AI course built for educators.

Last month, New York City Chancellor David Banks shared a look into the journey they’ve been on over the past six months to embrace the potential of generative AI to support students and teachers. We’re proud to share that we have been partnering with New York City Public Schools to support their exploration of the development of generative AI tools tailored for their own use and to help ensure they can lead the way in the responsible, safe and innovative use of AI by implementing appropriate safety and security measures. This has already included the launch of a chatbot that uses Microsoft AI technology to be the first point of contact with employees and families calling the IT Help Desk to offer faster, personalized support. While new opportunities are being explored, it’s important to note that the district has been working toward goals such as a full picture of student performance for years.

New York City Public Schools is also focused on preparing students for a world where understanding generative AI is crucial. They are working to ensure that this technology’s benefits are equitably distributed and that students are educated about the significant ethical concerns being contemplated. These discussions are already happening in classrooms across the city, and they will continue to equip students not only to utilize AI but also to critically examine its implications.

We are also excited about the work we have been doing with PowerSchool and Kahoot! to enable their new AI-powered experiences with the Azure OpenAI Service.

PowerSchool recently shared their vision to deliver personalized learning pathways built for individual students based on their learning goals within a secure platform. This new collaboration between PowerSchool and Microsoft provides additional functionality within the PowerSchool Personalized Learning Cloud that lets educators save time by leveraging AI to create formative assessments aligned to a desired learning objective, grade level, subject, and standard. It will be complemented by Adaptive Testing to better understand each student’s needs and the ability to then track student progress thanks to standards-aligned assessment items created by generative AI. We look forward to continuing our collaboration.