It quickly became clear that the technology needed guardrails when it came to student use. Companies like Khan Academy set about trying to create GPT-powered tools that would enhance the online learning experience and offer personalized support — but without enabling students to cheat. The result was Khanmigo, a chatbot that Khan Academy launched to help students edit essays and solve math problems.
In 2024, AI continues to be a key driver of innovation in the ed-tech space. Ello, for example, is betting that an AI-powered reading coach can help improve childhood literacy rates; the startup recently launched a more affordable, digital-only iteration of its product, along with a vast catalog of e-books.
“There are a lot of exciting technologies, generative AI being at the top of the list, which are making a lot of noise [and] attracting pretty explosive user bases,” says Tory Patterson, the managing director of Owl Ventures, a VC firm that invests exclusively in ed-tech companies. Even so, he argues it’s important to continue questioning how all this technology is being used, and to what end. “I always revert back to core principles,” he says. “What are we trying to solve with a lot of this new technology?”
There are, of course, plenty of issues in the education sector that cannot be solved with technology alone — even in the era of generative AI. As an online marketplace, Swing Education helps connect schools with substitute teachers. But in response to the ongoing teacher shortage, the company is now trying to recruit more people to the job as well, by simplifying the approval process. Companies like CodePath and Transfr, on the other hand, are addressing persistent inequities in higher education by creating new pathways for marginalized workers to get into the tech industry or acquire vocational training for jobs that don’t require a college degree.
And then there’s Campus, a national online community college that founder Tade Oyerinde is positioning as both an affordable alternative to a traditional four-year college education and an opportunity to increase engagement and completion rates among students pursuing online degree programs.
Looking at the year ahead, Patterson believes the overall decline in student engagement — an issue that was laid bare by the pandemic — will be one of the most crucial challenges for the industry going forward. “The student engagement problem is not a biological problem,” he says. “It’s a content and modality problem relative to where our current generation is at.”
Explore the full 2024 list of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, 606 organizations that are reshaping industries and culture. We’ve selected the firms making the biggest impact across 58 categories, including advertising, artificial intelligence, design, sustainability, and more.
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