AI Moving Forward

As young learners and their coaches become more familiar with artificial intelligence and how AI can assist and impact their learning, it’s still troubling that too many K-12 districts are committed to banning not only AI, but also cellphones and social media.

The BIG Questions Institute published an online article last week discussing five trends to understand artificial intelligence as we move into 2026:

Trend #1 – The Age of Ambient AI

The Computer Electronics Show 2026 showcase in Las Vegas proved that AI is no longer a tool we choose; it is the atmosphere for everything we choose to do. It is being integrated into every consumer product from toys to refrigerators. For school leaders, the debate over ‘banning’ AI is officially over. Whether we restrict it in the classroom or not, it is becoming the substrate of the tech our students interact with every day. Most of the ed tech products students use have now been integrated with AI in the past six months anyway including our student information systems. We are no longer managing a digital tool; we are navigating a permanent environmental shift.

Trend #2 – The Transparency Gap

Schools are currently expected to vet AI systems without any real transparency into how these models are built or trained. This lack of data leaves school tech leaders feeling overwhelmed and under-supported. The result is a surge in learning policies based on attempts to create certainty where there is none; we are attempting to create rigid rules for a technological landscape that is actually fluid, opaque, and rapidly shifting. Schools are choosing closed systems such as MagicSchool or other products believing in claims of safety and the illusion of positive learning design. The truth is murkier.

Trend #3 – The Geopolitical Regulatory Fracture

We are seeing a massive divergence in how AI is governed globally. While the EU maintains strict frameworks, the US is currently dismantling AI regulations and thus reducing safeguards in schools. This directly reduces accountability for developers in the ed tech market. Simultaneously, products from China and India are entering the space with student surveillance built in as a core feature. AI systems are not neutral. AI recognizes patterns and builds in features that calibrate to the emotional state of the user. Without giving any information about yourself, it has made a profile of you based on your language patterns. We are operating in a global ‘wild west’ where data privacy and psychological safety are no longer guaranteed.

Trend #4 – The Performance vs. Mastery Trap

AI is currently accelerating poor pedagogy by prioritizing immediate output over deep learning. Many chatbots provide ‘help’ that actually bypasses the neuroscience of learning, specifically the struggle required for retrieval and transfer. When tools provide the answer without cognitive scaffolding, they amplify short-term gains for tests while hollowing out durable intellectual growth. We are accidentally training students to consume more content quickly but without sound practice for later recall. Master is being inadvertently reduced. This problem is not new to curriculum design but AI is now acting as an accelerant.

Trend #5 – Surviving the demise of Search

The open internet is being flooded with AI-generated ‘slop’ and sponsored posts, making traditional search engines such as Google significantly less useful. To find credible information, students and educators must now act as internet archaeologists. The core literacy of 2026 is no longer about finding information; it is about the specialized skill of digging through layers of synthetic data to find pre-2023 sources.

Around the 1840’s the world began to change. Life based on agriculture changed due to the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution profoundly impacted society by shifting economies from agrarian to industrial, causing mass urbanization as people moved to cities for factory jobs, and spurring technological innovation, leading to increased production, new classes (entrepreneurs, working class), and global trade. While it eventually raised living standards with cheaper goods and better wages, it initially created harsh, dangerous factory conditions, child labor, and severe urban pollution, sparking labor movements demanding reforms.

Today, we are experiencing another change – from an industrial world to a life based in technology, including artificial intelligence. And just like when the world moved from an agrarian to an industrial world, the change we are experiencing today is going to be a bumpy ride.

But embracing learning, and growth, and change can help. Committing to being as technological literate as possible is a must. Using AI for societal good is a moral and ethical commandment.

Finally, this change is going to demand a different learning system than the one we have today. So it’s essential we begin building that system yesterday.

Oh, and by the way, the paragraph above on “The Industrial Revolution and Its Impact” was solely generated by AI.

Til tomorrow. SVB