Ed-tech company Instructure, makers of the widely used Canvas learning management system, and OpenAI are partnering to give teachers broad capability to harness artificial intelligence for a broad array of day-to-day tasks.
The effort is part of a larger framework Instructure has developed to allow AI integration capabilities into its platforms, called IgniteAI, the company said. The tool is meant to allow educators and students to use AI directly within Instructure’s systems, to accomplish tasks such as creating quizzes, generating rubrics, summarizing discussions, and aligning content to academic outcomes.
As OpenAI embeds its advanced AI models into Canvas, the companies say the integration is meant to allow educators to design AI-guided tasks through an experience similar to a chatbot and incorporate them into their lessons and assignments.
The tool is meant to give control to teachers by allowing them to customize learning prompts, set up and review how the chatbot interacts with students, and determine the parameters of how outcomes are evaluated, Instructure said. All student interactions within the platform are visible to the teacher, and student data is not shared with OpenAI, the organization added.
The tool will also allow for coaching tips to be built into teacher-facing features to provide pedagogical recommendations on how to apply feedback.
The two organizations cast the new partnership as a step forward in giving educators access to artificial intelligence integrated in a seamless way across a variety of uses, rather than asking them to rely on fragmented, standalone AI tools.
“We believe this is the direction [AI] is headed in, as opposed to point solutions that serve a single function,” Melissa Loble, Instructure’s chief academic officer, told EdWeek Market Brief. “We build our agents so they can really integrate and interact with Canvas [and its users.]”
Founded in 2015 and led by Sam Altman, OpenAI has emerged as one of the most prominent developers of artificial intelligence systems. It is perhaps best known for its release three years ago of the generative AI tool ChatGPT.
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The K-12 industry can expect to see a continued wave of education platforms strategically partnering with large language model developers to tap into AI’s power to help teachers and students, said Erin Mote, CEO of InnovateEDU, a nonprofit focused on improving policy and practice in schools through technology. Mote also heads the EDSAFE AI Alliance, a coalition of organizations that focus on the safe and equitable use of AI in education.
The project taken on by Instructure and OpenAI “mirrors a larger strategic shift seen in sectors like finance and healthcare,” Mote said in an email, “where leveraging frontier models through these partnerships has become the primary method for rapidly upscaling technological capabilities.”
As education companies continue to scale their offerings in AI, many of them are focusing on tools designed to help classroom educators, specifically, by reducing administrative, rote tasks and helping them create lessons. Targeting the educator audience is seen by some organizations as less risky than developing tools for students, as K-12 communities weigh concerns about data privacy and bias associated with the technology.
“We’re seeing AI-powered lesson-planning tools rapidly emerge as a primary application of AI in education,” Mote said.
Companies are focusing on teachers because there’s overwhelming user demand, she added.
A 2024 RAND study identified lesson-planning as a dominant use case of AI. In addition, surveys published by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation this year show that 6 in 10 teachers already use AI for planning or grading.
“[Instructure’s] IgniteAI tool targets administrative efficiency through agentic AI, which directly addresses the administrative burden that teachers cite as a leading cause of burnout,” Mote said.
However, as Instructure continues to enhance the platform, it will be important to “guarantee it is safe, accountable, fair, and transparent,” she added. Companies across the education sector, Mote said, should also commit to publishing “research and efficacy studies to deepen the sector’s knowledge of what works, for whom, and under what conditions.”
