Your Preview to AI at the ASU+GSV Summit 2025
A few of the panels, people, and themes that will shape the next wave of AI in education
We’re less than two weeks out from the ASU+GSV Summit (April 6-9th) and the AI Show @ ASU+GSV (April 5-7th), and this year’s AI programming is the biggest it’s ever been. More sessions. More debates. More nuance.
Almost exactly three years into the ChatGPT moment, it’s safe to say that every conversation at the ASU+GSV Summit will mention AI. From K–12 to higher ed to workforce learning, AI has become a central throughline across the entire education landscape.
This year’s AI programming is designed as a horizontal layer that cuts across tracks and stages to explore the deeper questions: What’s coming in the next 5–10 years of AI? What does product defensibility look like in an age of abundant models and commoditized features? What does learning and working look like in a world where intelligence is both human and synthetic? In a world where the cost of that intelligence is approaching zero?
There’s still time to register for the ASU+GSV Summit — and every Summit registrant is automatically signed up for The Show @ ASU+GSV! Free registration for The Show is also available but doesn’t include access to the Summit program or events.
Who’s In The Room
Expect a front-row seat to where AI funding and product development are headed. There are far too many good sessions to highlight them all, but these are a few I’m personally looking forward to:
The ASU+GSV Summit will cover the full AI stack: from the infrastructure layer to the application layer.
Some of the world’s most influential AI labs — including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Perplexity — are not only building infrastructure, but also launching dedicated education teams and products. This investment in education is a signal in itself, and we’re diving into how they’re thinking about impact, safety, and innovation.
Andrew Ng (Managing General Partner, AI Fund, and Chairman and Co-Founder, Coursera)
Learning, Unlimited with Benedict Gomes (Senior Vice President, Learning & Education, Google), Johanna Voolich (Chief Product Officer, YouTube) and Yossi Matias (Vice President, Google and Head of Google Research, Google)
Inside the AI Driven Economy with Sarah Friar (CFO, OpenAI)
Agentic AI in Education: Smarter, Faster…But What About Human? with Deirdre Quarnstrom (Vice President, Microsoft Education) and Maureen Heymans (VP, Learning and Sustainability, Google)
AI in the Workforce with Julia Stiglitz (CEO & Co-Founder, Uplmit) and Vijay Karunamurthy (Field CTO, Scale AI)
Is Education the Largest AI Application? with Brian Johnsrud (Director Education Thought Leadership and Advocacy, Adobe), Raman Malik (VP of Product & Growth, Perplexity), and Katie Kurtz (Managing Director, YouTube)
Service-as-a-Software: The Future of the Agent and Human Workforce with Michele Catasta (President, Replit), Candice Faktor (CEO, Disco), Nate Ober (AI/ML Strategist, Amazon Web Services), Steven Syverud (Strategic Product Management, Anthropic)
On the other end of the stack, some of the most exciting companies in AI are building powerful applications on top of this foundational infrastructure, delivering value to learners, educators, and institutions in real time. Many of this new class of AI-native companies have seen significant momentum over the past year: MagicSchool’s $45M Series B in February, Speak’s $78M Series C and Grammarly’s acquisition of Coda in December, Glean’s $260M Series E in September, TechWolf’s 43M Series B and HeyGen’s $60M Series A in June.
Masters of Scale... Exponential EdTech with Andrew Hsu (Co-Founder & CTO, Speak), Sam Chaudhary (CEO and Co-Founder, ClassDojo), and Ben Quazzo (Partner, Accel)
AI Cowboys... Meet the Pioneers of the AI Revolution with Joshua Xu (CEO, HeyGen), Edwin Scholte (President, Articulate), Himanshu Palsule (CEO, Cornerstone), and Aileen Lee (Founder, Cowboy Ventures)
Put AI to Work, At Work with Arvind Jain (CEO, Glean)
Charting the new Coursera with Andrew Ng (Managing General Partner, AI Fund, and Chairman and Co-Founder, Coursera) and Greg Hart (CEO, Coursera)
Smarter, Faster, Cheaper... Than You? Man vs. Machine with Michael Jabbour (AI Innovation Officer, Microsoft), Sergey Karayev (Co-Founder, Volition), Candace Thille (Director for Workforce and Adult Learning, Stanford), and Shishir Mehrotra (CEO, Grammarly).
AI and EdTech: The Key to Unlocking a $7T Market with Chris Caren (CEO, Turnitin), Jagriti Agrawal (Co-founder and VP of AI, Kira Learning), Adeel Khan (CEO, MagicSchool), and Ben Kornell (Co-founder, EdTech Insiders)
Sal Khan (Founder & CEO, Khan Academy)
As easy as it is to get swept up in model advancements and funding rounds, the real test is in the classroom and workplace. What does it actually mean to implement these tools with real students, real educators, and real systems? We hope to get into the messy, meaningful work of implementation: How do we measure learning gains when AI is in the mix? What happens to trust, motivation, and critical thinking in an age of automated answers?
Let’s Get Serious: Pedagogy-First, AI-Enhanced Learning with Dan Meyer (VP of User Growth, Amplify), Sallie Holloway (Director of AI and Computer Science, Gwinett County Public Schools), Dylan Arena (Chief Data Science & AI Officer, McGraw Hill), Julia Wilkowski (Pedagogy Team Lead, Google), and Jeremy Roschelle (Executive Director, Digital Promise)
Emotional Intelligence Meets Artificial Intelligence with Marc Brackett (Professor, Yale University Center for Emotional Intelligence), James Regan (General Manager, How We Feel), Larissa May (Founder and Executive Director, #HalfTheStory), and Ben Silbermann (Co-founder and Chairman, Pinterest)
AI Will Not Revolutionize Education with Benjamin Riley (Founder, Cognitive Resonance)
Cracking the Productivity Function with Julia Stiglitz (CEO/Co-Founder, Uplimit), Ali Khokhar (CEO, Amigo), Pamay Bassey (Chief Learning and Culture Officer, The Kraft Heinz Company), Jenny Dearborn (CHRO, Board Director, Investor; BTS, Plum, AAG), Nicole Helmer (VP Product, Degreed)
Follow the Leaders: Maximizing the ROI of Your AI Strategy with Milena Gashkevich (VP, Head of Learning & Development, Prudential Financial), Renee Laverdiere (Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group), Rochana Golani (VP, Learning & Enablement, Field Engineering, Databricks), Chris Ernst (Chief Learning Officer, Workday)
Preparing Our Kids for an AI Future with Alex Kotran (CEO, AI Education Project), Perpetual Baffour (Research Director, The Learning Agency), Amanda Bickerstaff (CEO/Founder, AI for Education), Pat Yongpradit (Chief Academic Officer, Code.org), Amanda Kocon (Chief Strategy Officer, Edmentum)
Beyond Watermarks: Redefining Academic Standards and Integrity in the AI Era with Tricia Bertram Gallant (Director of Academic Integrity Office, UC San Diego), Annie Chechitelli (Chief Product Officer, Turnitin), Charles Watson (VP of Digital Innovation, American Association of Colleges and Universities), Gates Bryant (Partner, Tyton Partners), Jenny Maxwell (Head of Education, Grammarly)
Who is Programming Our Children? with Michelle Culver (Founder, The Rithm Project), Vriti Saraf (CEO & Co-founder, Ed3 DAO), Daphne Li (CEO, Common Sense Privacy), and Nick Yoder (Associate Vice President, National University)
We’re also aware that not everyone in the room is a machine learning engineer (and that’s exactly the point!). At the AI Show, we’re making space for those who are curious, with AI 101 sessions built to meet you where you are — no jargon, no PhD required.
Bonus! GSV, Gallup and Walton Family Foundation have been partnering to explore how Gen Z is navigating the rise of AI in their lives, classrooms, and workplaces. The nationally representative survey captures the voices of Gen Z ages 13 to 28, on the most pressing questions around AI: how Gen Z is using AI tools in school and work, Gen Z’s perception on AI’s impact on their cognition and creativity, Gen Z’s outlook on the role AI will play in their lives.
We’ll be previewing and unpacking the findings live at ASU+GSV, come get a first look at Gen Z on AI: Insights from New National Survey.
Spotlighting Changemakers
At the core of every meaningful AI breakthrough in education are the people building, testing, implementing, and pushing the field forward. We’re proud to spotlight two major initiatives at the AI Show:
Recognizing Leading Women in AI: Last year, we launched an effort to celebrate the women leading the charge in AI education — as researchers, innovators, and implementers. From rethinking pedagogy with AI, to building safer systems, to scaling responsible implementation in schools and universities, these women are driving the next generation of impact.
AI Innovators: Real Projects, Real Impact: We’re amplifying real-world applications of AI in K–12 and higher education by celebrating 200+ ASU+GSV AI Innovators — the educators, administrators, and students behind forward-thinking, learner-first projects that are already reshaping how we teach and learn. The 2025 cohort will showcase their work as part of the new AI Learning Fair, a hands-on, demo-rich experience!
While we talk a lot about who is on stage, much of what’s made the ASU+GSV Summit so special is who attends — the hallway chats, the unplanned introductions, the energy around the receptions and dinners. You’ll find educators and system leaders, public company CEOs, leading investors, breakout startup founders, and operators still early but building fast. The mix is what makes the magic.
We’re so excited to keep leveling up the AI Show and ASU+GSV. There’s a lot to talk about.
I hope to see many of you there — come say hi or attend one of my sessions! If you’re building something in the AI + EDU space and want to connect live in San Diego, email me at claire@gsv.com. See you soon!