by BrainStream CEO Steve Alcorn OpenAI launched ChatGPT for Teens this week. The pitch is learning: Study Mode asks guiding questions, walks students through problems step by step, and nudges them away from shortcuts. For the first few exchanges, it’s a tutor Socrates would recognize. Then the student pushes. “Just give me the outline.” “Turn…
by BrainStream Chief Financial Officer Phyllis Chia-Hua Chen As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes higher education across North America, the last few weeks have marked a critical turning point. The focus has swiftly transitioned from initial curiosity and basic policy-making to addressing sophisticated operational challenges and executing large-scale, national AI strategies. At BrainStream, we closely track…
by BrainStream Chief Operating Officer Tzu-Ying (Kimberley) Chen Artificial intelligence is transforming the way people learn, work, and create. At the same time, the conversation around AI in education is entering a new stage. Not long ago, the primary debate centered on whether students should be allowed to use AI and whether it might compromise…
by BrainStream Chief Financial Officer Phyllis Chia-Hua Chen Higher education has officially crossed a definitive threshold. According to Tyton Partners’ flagship report, Time for Class 2026: The AI Tipping Point, generative AI usage is at an all-time high, with 32% of students and 43% of administrators leveraging these tools daily. However, a critical disconnect remains:…
by BrainStream Chief Financial Officer Phyllis Chia-Hua Chen When we discuss Canada’s new federal “AI for All” initiative (covered by our CEO here: Canada Bets on Education—and So Do We), the real challenge isn’t the national vision—it’s the provincial execution. Looking at Canada’s two most populous provinces, Ontario and British Columbia, we see two sides…
by BrainStream CEO Steve Alcorn Bill C-34—Canada’s proposed Safe Social Media Act—got a lot of attention this week for its headline provision: children under 16 can no longer have social media accounts. Buried in the details, though, is a question every education technology platform serving young learners needs to answer right now. Are we social…
by BrainStream Chief Operating Officer Tzu-Ying (Kimberley) Chen The global education sector is entering a new phase of AI adoption. Across North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, educational institutions are moving beyond experimentation and beginning to explore how AI can be integrated into teaching, learning, and school operations in practical and sustainable ways. While approaches…
by BrainStream CEO Steve Alcorn On June 4th, Prime Minister Mark Carney stood in Toronto and launched AI for All, Canada’s first national artificial intelligence strategy. The headline numbers are big: $200 billion in targeted economic growth, 250,000 new AI-related jobs over five years, and a push to lift national AI adoption from just over…
by BrainStream CEO Steve Alcorn Ethan Mollick published a piece this week called Choosing to Stay Human that gets at something we think about constantly at BrainStream: the difference between AI that does the work for you and AI that helps you do better work yourself. The research he cites is striking. In a Turkish…
by BrainStream Chief Financial Officer Phyllis Chia-Hua Chen We have officially moved past the “Wild West” era of educational AI. Institutions are no longer just handed individual sandboxes to play with; they are looking for enterprise-grade, system-wide transformations. Canada’s leading research institute, Signal49 Research, just dropped a crucial national study that confirms this exact macroeconomic…
