Google teams with Digital Promise to develop research-backed AI tools for education
Google has announced a partnership with Digital Promise, a global nonprofit, to co-design and establish frameworks for evaluating AI-powered learning tools.
The collaboration, unveiled during Google’s Learning in the AI Era event, aims to address key challenges in education by creating trusted, research-backed technologies that meet the needs of educators and students.
Pati Ruiz, Senior Director of EdTech and Emerging Technologies at Digital Promise, shared in a LinkedIn post:
“Big News: We’re Partnering with Google! The EdTech team is excited to share that Digital Promise is teaming up with Google to tackle one of the most important challenges in education today: creating meaningful, transformative, and more trusted AI-enabled learning technologies.”
Ruiz explained that the project will bring together educators, researchers, and developers to co-design tools and standards that ensure quality and usability. “By keeping things grounded in solid research and real-world priorities, we’re making sure this project has a lasting impact,” she added.
AI tools highlighted at the event
The event also showcased Google’s latest AI tools designed to enhance learning experiences:
Learn About: A conversational AI tool that allows users to dive deeper into any topic. Designed with learning science principles, it promotes long-term retention and fosters curiosity. Ben Gomes, SVP of Learning & Education at Google, commented, “I’ve personally been using Learn About to understand feldspars in geology. With this tool, I was able to better understand that a large fraction of the gemstones you see are just one or two simple structures.”
NotebookLM: A tool that enables users to upload materials and receive AI-generated summaries, outlines, and follow-up questions. NotebookLM includes Audio Overviews, providing auditory learners with an engaging way to synthesize information.
LearnLM: An experimental model optimized for pedagogy and available through Google AI Studio. LearnLM integrates advancements into Google’s Gemini models, enabling developers to create effective teaching and learning applications.
Advancing AI in education
Ben Gomes outlined Google’s broader mission of combining AI with learning science to create more effective and engaging educational tools. “Since the earliest days of Search, we’ve led the way in helping people discover and understand the world around them. Now, through advancements in AI, we’re creating more powerful, interactive ways to learn than ever before,” Gomes said.
Google emphasized the importance of nurturing curiosity and making learning accessible for students, educators, and lifelong learners. “Curiosity is another word for our instinct to learn,” Gomes added.
Discussing LearnLM, Gnomes shared:
“This experimental research model is optimized for pedagogy, meaning it’s designed to foster understanding based on learning science. With this update, our goal is to allow more developers to experiment with and evaluate LearnLM, providing feedback that will help improve our models and the products they power.”
