AI in Education Attracts Startups and Cash

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Tech News

4.3 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If generative artificial intelligence is going to upend learning, then startups and investors want to be part of it. Varun Gulati, CEO of LitLab, describes how his company’s AI tool can make learning to read more personal. And Reach Capital’s Jennifer Carolan explains why the generative AI boom is different from edtech investment trends of the past. This is part three of our series Reading, Writing, and Algorithms. Click the links to listen to episode 1 and episode 2. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Join the Wall Street Journal online October 12th for WSJ Pro Sustainable Business Forum
0:05.8	and take away practical advice on how to build a sustainability strategy that's right for your business.
0:11.5	From now until September 21st, you can save 25% on your ticket by registering at WSJ.com
0:18.8	slash Sustainable Business, no code required. That's WSJ.com slash Sustainable Business.
0:30.2	Welcome to Tech News briefing. It's Monday, August 28th. I'm Zoe Thomas,
0:34.8	and I'm Julie Chang for the Wall Street Journal. Over the past few weeks, we've been looking at how
0:39.6	generative artificial intelligence could impact education and shape learning. But there is also
0:45.5	an area that's making money off this boom. Education technology companies and their investors.
0:52.2	This school year, students and teachers will have new AI tools like ChatGBT and Bard at their
0:57.7	disposal. Julie, you used to be a teacher, and now we've done some reporting on this. How much are
1:03.4	these AI tools expected to change the basics of learning? Well, these AI programs are online tools
1:10.3	we've seen before because generative AI can do just so much. And those abilities mean that it can
1:17.9	essentially touch every area of education. Even areas as basic as reading, writing, math. So today,
1:25.5	we're going to hear from a startup that's trying to ride the AI wave. And from a venture capitalist
1:30.5	who knows this space well, and can tell us why EdTech investing is entering a new frontier.
1:36.6	By the way, this is episode three of our series, reading, writing, and algorithms. You can find
1:41.8	the first two episodes linked in our show notes. One way EdTech startups are using generative AI
1:51.4	is to create new or personalized versions of tools that schools have always used, like books.
1:59.4	LitLab.AI uses artificial intelligence to make individualized stories for children with a goal of
2:06.3	helping them learn to read. It was founded a year ago and used to be called Koala. It released a
2:11.5	product for parents last September. And then at the start of the year, it pivoted to teachers.
2:16.8	It's founder and CEO Varun Gladi says it's currently working with thousands of students.
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