Maintaining Confidence in Artificial Intelligence: Khan Academy's Strategy for Securing Education's Future

Khan Academy, a renowned online learning platform founded in 2008, has been making waves in the educational sector with its latest innovation - Khanmigo, an AI-powered tutor. The organisation, which now serves over 150 million registered users across 190 countries, is committed to making quality education more accessible globally.

The strategy behind Khan Academy's approach is deliberate and thoughtful. Scaling slowly, working closely with schools, and putting educators at the heart of the process are key elements of their strategy. Sal Khan, the CEO of Khan Academy, believes that AI could become the most powerful educational tool of our time, but only if rolled out responsibly with guardrails in place.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Khan Academy became a lifeline for millions of students and teachers in remote learning. The platform's AI tools, such as Khanmigo, are designed to aid students with math problems, role-play historical figures, and even help teachers draft lesson plans.

Khanmigo, built on large language models, acts as a thoughtful guide rather than a replacement for human teachers. It is deliberately constrained and will not solve a math problem outright, instead guiding students through the logic behind it. The goal is not to replace teachers but to empower them by supplementing human instruction.

The challenge lies in making AI tutoring a reality without deskilling teachers, reducing human interaction, or worsening digital divides between schools. Khan Academy prioritises transparency and ethical design in AI-powered education, focusing on avoiding student data exploitation and maintaining rigorous testing to avoid giving harmful or misleading responses.

Trust is considered crucial in education by Sal Khan. He believes that without it, even the best tools will fail. Technology, according to Khan, can either erode trust or deepen it, and the organisation's job is to ensure it deepens trust.

Khan Academy is committed to testing Khanmigo in real-world classrooms, refining its safety features, and ensuring it helps teachers rather than replacing them. The organisation has partnered with over 450 school districts across the United States, focusing on those serving historically under-resourced communities, and collaborates with institutions worldwide to test Khanmigo in schools and ensure its accessibility to underserved students.

The goal is to make AI tutoring accessible to all, not just a perk for those who can pay. By putting educators at the centre of the process and working closely with schools, Khan Academy is striving to build tools that scale the human touch, not erase it. As the world continues to grapple with the challenges of remote learning, Khan Academy's commitment to responsible AI implementation could pave the way for a more accessible and trustworthy educational future.