Why is ed-tech different this time?

Wrapped up a fireside chat last week at the Goldman Sachs Disruptive Technology Symposium in London on AI and the future of education.

The question I keep getting asked is:

“Edtech has largely been a terrible investment. Why is this time different?”

Three structural shifts.

  1. AI makes instruction scalable. For the first time, technology can deliver something close to one-to-one tutoring at the cost of a textbook. That changes the economics of learning.
  2. The infrastructure is already in place. Pandemic-era investment put devices and connectivity into classrooms. The distribution layer that edtech struggled with for years now largely exists.
  3. A global teacher shortage is forcing change. UNESCO projects a shortfall of 44 million teachers by 2030. The world is looking for ways to expand teaching capacity.

But the biggest shift is the customer.

Much of venture-backed edtech focused on selling to parents and students. The real scale in education sits with school systems.

When technology can meaningfully improve learning outcomes and help solve structural capacity problems, governments start paying attention.

That’s a very different market. And very different economics.

Originally posted on LinkedIn.