OpenAI and Anthropic Offered Free Access to Their Chatbots to the U.S. Government

OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise and Anthropic's Claude will be offered for free to the Federal Government. The move comes after OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind have added to the General Services Administration’s list of approved AI vendors that can sell their services to civilian federal agencies. They have been granted up to $200 million by the Department of Defense to advance U.S. national security capabilities. In the case of Anthropic, this company has decided to extend the offer to “all three branches” of the U.S. government, including the legislative and judiciary branches, for one year. "We believe the U.S. public sector should have access to the most advanced AI capabilities to tackle complex challenges, from scientific research to constituent services," Anthropic said in a statement. Anthropic will offer both Claude for Enterprise and Claude for Government. The latter supports the security baseline FedRAMP High workloads, so that federal workers can use Claude for handling sensitive unclassified work. In addition to being certified for FedRAMP High, Claude exhibits its existing secure infrastructure via partnerships with AWS, Google Cloud, and Palantir. In its press release, the company noted that Claude is already being used at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to accelerate scientific discoveries, and also by the District of Columbia Department of Health to help residents access health services in multiple languages. OpenAI's official FedRAMP High offering is tied to Azure Government Cloud only. This company said that it is working to reduce its reliance on Azure to embrace a more diversified infrastructure approach.

OpenAI Reactivates 4o the Model Picker for Paid Users

D2L Enhances Its AI Toolset on Tutor, Support, Insights, and Feedback

ChatGPT Releases Two "Best-In-Class" Open-Source Models

Blackboard LMS Adds a New Set of AI Capabilities Within its 'Anthology Virtual Assistant (AVA)'

Anthology, maker of Blackboard LMS, announced last month a new set of AI capabilities within its Anthology Virtual Assistant (AVA), complementing the existing AI Design Assistant to accelerate content creation. AVA Automations: Instructors can set performance or time-based rules to automatically send personalized messages and nudges to keep students engaged and on track, such as celebrating a high grade or reminding them to log in. These messages are instructor-written, fully customizable, and logged for complete transparency. AVA Responses: Instant, AI-generated answers based on course content and syllabus, such as questions about deadlines or grading criteria. Instructors can review and confirm as needed all of these common student questions. AVA Feedback Assistant: Instructors can deliver high-quality, student-friendly feedback in less time. Summarize Feedback: It auto-generates a clear summary based on rubric selections and grading criteria. Rewrite Feedback: It turns informal notes or fragments into polished, constructive messages. These two features enable instructors to save time on grading tasks while still providing clear, personalized feedback to students. Other new features in Blackboard include the AI Badge Creator and Outcomes, which enable the measurement, management, and showcasing of student learning. > AI Product Video Demos > Phil Hill: Anthology Together Conference Notes 2025    

OpenAI's GPT-5 Rollout Faced Backlash as Old Models Were Retired

OpenAI's last upgrade to GPT-5 rollout faced backlash for retiring older models among users. OpenAI acknowledged that it underestimated users’ affection for the older GPTs, even if GPT-5 performs better in most ways. In response to the critics, OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, announced that rate limits for ChatGPT Plus users would be doubled and would continue to use the 4o model. GPT-5 rollout updates: *We are going to double GPT-5 rate limits for ChatGPT Plus users as we finish rollout. *We will let Plus users choose to continue to use 4o. We will watch usage as we think about how long to offer legacy models for. *GPT-5 will seem smarter starting… — Sam Altman (@sama) August 8, 2025 Wanted to provide more updates on the GPT-5 rollout and changes we are making heading into the weekend. 1. We for sure underestimated how much some of the things that people like in GPT-4o matter to them, even if GPT-5 performs better in most ways. 2. Users have very different… — Sam Altman (@sama) August 8, 2025 Previously, ChatGPT could tap into several different AI models, including GPT‑4o, o3, o4-mini, GPT‑4.1, and GPT‑4.5. But OpenAI has since replaced them with a family of GPT-5 models. On Thursday, OpenAI unveiled a new flagship AI model, GPT-5, and began sharing the technology with ChatGPT users worldwide. OpenAI executives called GPT-5 a "major upgrade" over their AI systems, saying the new technology was faster, more accurate, and less likely to hallucinate. "GPT-5 is the first time that it feels like talking to an expert in any topic — a Ph.D.-level expert," said OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman. Also, it was the first time that OpenAI has used a reasoning model to power the free version of ChatGPT. Experts agreed on the fact that the technology feels more human than previous models. Sam Altman called the system a "significant step" along the path to the ultimate goal of the company and its rivals: artificial general intelligence, or AGI, a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. GPT-5's launch arrives in a moment when OpenAI, which is not yet profitable, plans to raise $40 billion this year, while being on pace to generate revenues of $20 billion by the end of 2025. GPT-5 is now available in Cursor. It’s the most intelligent coding model our team has tested. We're launching it for free for the time being. Enjoy! — Cursor (@cursor_ai) August 7, 2025 GPT-5 has 4 new chat personalities: Cynic, Robot, Listener, Nerd. Find them in Customize ChatGPT in settings. Research preview. Text-only. Opt-in. Change anytime. Written by Robot in GPT-5. pic.twitter.com/XxyWYNYxHt — OpenAI (@OpenAI) August 7, 2025 GPT-5 is here. Rolling out to everyone starting today.https://t.co/rOcZ8J2btI pic.twitter.com/dk6zLTe04s — OpenAI (@OpenAI) August 7, 2025

Microsoft Prepares the Launch of a Virtual Character that Interacts With The User

Universities Face an Existential Crisis Unless They Reinvent Themselves, Says a BCG Report

"Engineering Students Use AI as a Shortcut Rather Than a Learning Companion"

OpenAI Introduces Its Flagship Model 'GPT-5', Making It the New Default in ChatGPT

OpenAI unveiled its latest model, GPT-5 yesterday, making it available to all ChatGPT users, including those on the free tier, with usage limits varying by subscription level. It is also integrated into Microsoft 365 Copilot and available to developers through the OpenAI API. The company made GPT‑5 the new default in ChatGPT, replacing GPT‑4o, OpenAI o3, OpenAI o4-mini, GPT‑4.1, and GPT‑4.5 for signed-in users. GPT‑5 started to roll out today to all Plus, Pro, Team, and Free users, with access for Enterprise and Edu coming in one week. Pro, Plus, and Team users could also start coding with GPT‑5 in the Codex CLI⁠ by signing in with ChatGPT. Pro subscribers got unlimited access to GPT‑5, and access to GPT‑5 Pro, for complex tasks and a replacement of OpenAI o3‑pro. Plus users have significantly higher usage than free users. "For ChatGPT free-tier users, full reasoning capabilities may take a few days to fully roll out. Once free users reach their GPT‑5 usage limits, they will transition to GPT‑5 mini, a smaller, faster, and highly capable model," said OpenAI. During a livestream presentation [watch in the video below], the company's CEO, Sam Altman, described the model as "having a team of experts on call for whatever you want to know." He defined it as "our smartest, fastest, most useful model yet, with built-in thinking that puts expert-level intelligence in everyone's hands." GPT‑5 provides more useful responses across math, science, finance, and law. It includes 128,000 max output tokens. The price per 1 million tokens for the API is $1.25. The tools supported by this model when using the Responses API are Web search, File search, Image generation, Code interpreter, and MCP. OpenAI's executives who participated in the virtual presentation highlighted the coding capabilities of GPT-5, tackling "complex tasks end-to-end and delivering more readily usable code, better design, and is more effective at debugging." GPT‑5 is OpenAI's most advanced model for coding and agentic tasks. It produces high-quality code, generates front-end UI with minimal prompting, and shows improvements to personality, steerability, and executing long chains of tool calls." GPT‑5 also showed ‘minimal’ reasoning and a ‘verbosity’ parameter in the API.   • Pricing and Characteristics • Release Notes • Research Paper GPT-5 has 4 new chat personalities: Cynic, Robot, Listener, Nerd. Find them in Customize ChatGPT in settings. Research preview. Text-only. Opt-in. Change anytime. Written by Robot in GPT-5. pic.twitter.com/XxyWYNYxHt — OpenAI (@OpenAI) August 7, 2025

Gemini Introduces Its Socratic-Style AI Assistant for Learners

Google’s Gemini introduced yesterday its “education mode”, a Socratic-style AI companion tutor similar to OpenAI’s Study Mode and Anthropic’s Claude for Education, both recently launched. Like the other personalized assistants, “Guided Learning in Gemini” is designed to avoid immediately spitting out quick answers and ask probing, open-ended questions, adapt explanations to the learner’s level, walk them through step-by-step reasoning, and use videos, diagrams, visuals, and quizzes to reinforce concepts. Essentially, they all guide users through problems with Socratic prompts, scaffolded reasoning, and adaptive feedback across a range of subjects and skill levels, instead of just handing over the answer. These AI companies said that these AI assistants are built with input from educators, pedagogical experts, and learning scientists, alongside feedback from college students. "Guided Learning is designed to be a partner in teaching, built on the core principle that real learning is an active, constructive process. It encourages students to move beyond answers and develop their own thinking by guiding them with questions that foster critical thought. To make it simple to bring this approach into their classrooms, we created a dedicated link that educators can post directly in Google Classroom or share with students," explained the search giant. However, independent experts argue that these mentors show many limitations, such as minimal persistent memory, early over-structuring, and a tendency to agree too quickly. In the educational area, Gemini is already getting a good response with LearnLM, a family of models fine-tuned for learning and grounded in educational research. https://iblnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Guided_Learning_Comparison_high_resolution_PVTQjb1.mp4

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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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OpenAI Launches Educational GPT Model

Adaptive Learning Platforms Show 40% Improvement

Microsoft Education Copilot Beta Launch

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