Microsoft Will Provide $4 Billion to Schools, Community Colleges, Technical Colleges, and Nonprofits to Extend AI

Microsoft announced this week that it will provide over $4 billion in cash, technology services, cloud computing credits, and resources to train students in schools, community colleges, technical colleges, and nonprofits on the use of AI. The company, which develops the Copilot chatbot, is also launching the Microsoft Elevate Academy to provide AI skills training and certification to 20 million people. Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, said in an interview, “Microsoft will serve as an advocate to ensure that students in every school across the country have access to AI education.” The announcement came as tech companies are racing to train millions of teachers and students on their AI tools. Last week, the American Federation of Teachers, a union representing 1.8 million members, announced the establishment of a national AI training center for educators, with $23 million in funding from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Last week, several dozen companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and OpenAI, signed a White House pledge promising to provide schools with funding, technology, and training materials for AI education. In 2023, Amazon announced a new company program, “AI Ready,” to provide free online Amazon AI skills courses for two million people.

Teachers' Union Creates a National Academy for AI Instruction With $23M From Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic

Google's Gemini Rolled Out Globally Its Video Generation Model 'Veo 3'

Mattel Partners with OpenAI to Produce AI-Powered Toys and Games

The Linux Foundation Establishes an Open Standard for Interoperability among AI Agents

The Linux Foundation announced the launch, along with a hundred top tech companies, of the Agent2Agent (A2A) project, an open and interoperable ecosystem for AI agents. This protocol was developed by Google to address the challenge of scaling AI agents across enterprise environments, regardless of platform, vendor, or framework. A2A enables autonomous agents to discover one another, exchange information securely, and collaborate across systems. "This allows developers and organizations to unite agents from multiple sources and platforms, improving modularity, mitigating vendor lock-in, and accelerating innovation," said the Linux Foundation. Brands like Google, Microsoft, AWS, Cisco, Salesforce, SAP, and ServiceNow participate in the project. Under the Linux Foundation’s governance, A2A claims it will remain vendor-neutral and foster a vibrant ecosystem of developers, researchers, and companies.

Google Launched Over 30 AI Tools for Educators

Google shared updates across Gemini, Google Workspace for Education, and Chromebook this week during the ISTE edtech conference, following its goal of integrating its AI tools deeply into the classroom. Announcements were featured in a PDF Launch Guide and included: • Gemini in Classroom, with over 30 AI tools for educators, like the ability for teachers to brainstorm ideas, generate lesson plans, and personalize content for students using AI. document.createElement('video'); https://iblnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/startertileISTE2025_Workspace_Classroom_GeminiTab_StarterTiles_June_2025_16x9.mp4 https://iblnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ISTE2025_Workspace_Classroom_GeminiTab_QuizGen_June_2025_16x9_1.mp4 https://iblnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ISTE2025_Workspace_Classroom_GeminiTab_LessonPlan_June_2025.mp4 • Gemini for Education, a version of the Gemini app built for education. • Expanded access to Google Vids, a collaborative video creation app, for Education users. • Class tools for managed Chromebooks for class time. This Gemini AI suite is now available for free for education accounts in Google Workspace.   Teachers can also create custom versions of the Gemini AI, called “Gems,” which will function as AI experts to help students who need extra support or want to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. Additionally, Google plans to provide teachers with Notebook LM, a research tool designed to create interactive study guides. Soon, teachers will also be able to offer students real-time support for the AI-powered reading buddy when using the Read Along in Classroom tool. Google is expanding basic access to its AI-powered video creator, Google Vids, enabling teachers to utilize the tool for creating instructional videos. At the same time, students can utilize Vids for tasks such as book reports or other assignments. The company is also rolling out a series of new features designed to track student progress against learning standards and skills, view analytics on student performance and engagement, better secure Gemini user data and data in Gmail, manage who has access to AI tools like Gemini and Notebook LM, have better control over Google Meet waiting rooms, and more. Google has introduced a new teaching mode called Class Tools. This allows teachers to connect directly with their students via Google Classroom and share content on the kids’ screens, such as videos, articles, slides, and quizzes.

Yahoo News, WSJ, and Bloomberg Introduced AI Summaries as Part of their Stories

Sixty-Eight Organizations Support Trump's Pledge to Educate K-12 Students on AI

University Endowments Will Be More Heavily Taxed and Student Federal Borrowing Will Be Capped

Pearson and Google Will Collaborate on AI Tools for Students and Educators

Google Cloud and Pearson, a leading UK company in the K-12 space, will collaborate to deliver AI-powered tools for personalized learning and academic success, the two companies announced last week. It will be “a multi-year strategic collaboration,” according to their press release. Teachers will be provided with data-driven insights to view students’ progress and learning needs, enabling more targeted instruction. In addition, schools will be able to use and scale Google’s Veo and Imagen generation tools over Pearson’s content and services. Google Cloud will use Pearson’s Credly for professional badges and certificates. Both organizations stated that they will further “explore opportunities for integration across their product suites.” Google Cloud currently competes in the educational space with other cloud services firms such as Microsoft’s Azure and AWS. It offers the Vertex AI Platform, Gemini, agenticAI, LearnLM, and other models fine-tuned for learning. Omar Abbosh, Pearson CEO. said “By combining Pearson’s deep learning expertise with Google’s technology and AI capabilities, we will deliver a more personalized experience for students and equip K-12 teachers with tools that help them to focus on what matters most: sparking curiosity, developing critical thinking, and fostering a lifelong love of learning.”

Character.AI Unveils Video Generation and Social Feed Features

Character.AI unveiled a new suite of multi-modal and multimedia features this week to engage with and create Characters. These enhancements include the AvatarFX video-generation model, which allows for the creation of up to five videos per day. Users upload a photo that serves as the basis for the video clip, select a voice, and write out the dialogue for the character. Users can also turn these videos into Scenes and Streams, which enable users to create videos featuring their characters and then share them on a new social feed. Experts criticized these deployments, saying that Character.AI's multimedia offerings expand the potential for these products to be abused. Techcrunch wrote, "Character.AI has a track record of abuse on its platform; parents have filed lawsuits against the company, claiming chatbots attempted to convince their children to self-harm, to kill themselves, or to kill their parents. One 14-year-old boy died by suicide after he was encouraged to do so by a Character.AI bot, with whom he had developed an unhealthy, obsessive relationship." Character.AI responds that it watermarks each video, although bad actors can circumvent this safeguard. “Our goal is to provide an engaging space that fosters creativity while maintaining a safe environment for all,” Character.AI said in its blog post.

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Today's Summary

Sunday, November 23, 2025

Education technology today is marked by rising AI adoption among educators and innovative personalized learning approaches.

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Today in AI & EdTech

Sunday, November 23, 2025

AI is transforming the education technology landscape as more teachers adopt intelligent tools, driving forward and adaptive learning experiences.

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