Classroom platform Canvas getting more AI features, courtesy of OpenAI

Thousands of educational institutions that use popular ed-tech platform Canvas to assign coursework, score tests, and design lesson plans will soon receive even more AI features in coming months.

Part of a series of industry-wide collaborations, the platform's parent company, Instructure, has signed on to a new partnership with OpenAI, an initiative that will see the learning software leverage OpenAI's tech to build out more AI experiences for users.

Teachers, for example, will gain access to AI-powered personalization, feedback, and assessment data, the companies explain. "Routine and low-value tasks," will be automated, and students will experience more "personalized, adaptable learning journeys" with additional assignment and evaluation interactions with its AI.

Canvas' first collaboratively designed AI tool is a new "LLM-Enabled Assignment" feature, an additional assignment option for teachers that lets them create a classroom chatbot experience for students, customizing how students interact with, receive learning objectives from, and prompt the GPT-like tool. Teachers can then use insights from the LLM to evaluate student submissions. "This feature provides a meaningful way to teach students how to use these tools responsibly and effectively, all within a high-quality pedagogical framework that encourages critical thinking and supports higher-order skills," said Shiren Vijiasingam, chief product officer at Instructure.

Anthropic, makers of chatbot Claude, announced an integration with Canvas' Learning Tools Interoperability in June, which lets students use Claude directly in the Canvas platform while doing coursework — users will still be able to enable Claude (and other integrated tools) alongside the OpenAI partnership. Across the board, AI's biggest players have chosen to invest heavily in the technology's educational applications, including teacher tools, student skill building, and a free, nationwide training program for educators in partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

“This collaboration with OpenAI showcases our ambitious vision: creating a future-ready ecosystem that fosters meaningful learning and achievement at every stage of education" wrote Instructure CEO Steve Daly. "This is a significant step forward for the education community as we continuously amplify the learning experience and improve student outcomes."