Learn about our latest announcements from Bett UK 2025 and discover how AI is transforming education.
AI is transforming how we live, work, and learn. In education, it builds efficiencies, streamlines processes, and fosters innovation with measurable results. A recent IDC study found that education organizations using generative AI are realizing an ROI of $3.2x within 13 months for every $1 invested.1 These findings highlight the impact AI is beginning to have on education. And as it reshapes all industries, the demand for an AI-skilled workforce is set to grow. Equipping students with these skills not only prepares them to thrive in the future, it ensures they can lead in an AI-powered world.
As AI technologies advance, a new world of possibilities emerges in K-12 and higher education. Educators and administrators around the world who attended Bett UK in London this year learned firsthand about these advancements, particularly the transformative power of agents. Designed to work alongside you, agents will have a particular expertise in areas such as instructional design or individual student preferences. And they can leverage institutional data to offer relevant insights for educators and administrators in real-time.
At Microsoft, we’re excited to help faculty, staff, and students achieve greater impact with AI and agents through our recently announced Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat—the chat experience you can use every day—powered by broad knowledge from the web, built on the latest AI models, and designed to be safe and secure.
Understanding the impact of AI in education to empower educators and students
Understanding how the use of generative AI impacts learning outcomes is key to creating effective guidelines for and usage of AI in education. Our latest insights emphasize the need to position AI as a complement, not a substitute for established practices that are essential for learning. By integrating AI thoughtfully with traditional methods, we may achieve enhanced learning outcomes that neither approach can deliver alone.
A study conducted by the World Bank with students using AI at Edo Boys High School in Nigeria saw remarkable learning gains in their after-school program with preliminary findings improving learning by “about 0.3 standard deviations, equivalent to nearly two years of typical learning in just six weeks,” illustrating the potential for AI. We look forward to sharing the full report and continuing to understand the long-term effects, role of educators, benefits extended to other disciplines, and more.
Microsoft Research and Cambridge University Press & Assessment conducted one of the first large-scale investigations into the impact of large language models (LLMs) on the foundations of learning: understanding and retaining information. The preliminary research findings reveal the continued importance of traditional learning approaches. They also demonstrate the benefits of combining AI with traditional learning resources over AI alone and point to the AI skills that students need to maximize those benefits.
Through a “snapshot in time” study of AI in higher education, Microsoft Research sought to understand how practices and norms are developing around practical and policy realities. Both students and educators prefer AI to be further integrated as a complement to other learning methods, but to do so they need training. The study suggests involving students and educators in guidance and development, empowering students to use AI to support learning, providing training with exposures to errors in AI output, and encouraging collaboration between students and educators.
Defending at the speed of AI
As educational institutions harness the power of AI, it’s essential campus environments remain secure, reliable, and compliant. Designing a strategy that balances innovation and security with policies and practices to support AI is critical. Microsoft principles of Responsible AI—fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability—help institutions prepare for AI implementation. A robust framework of tools from Microsoft can guide you through successful implementation. World class security tools like Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Entra, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Intune, can play an important role in protecting sensitive data and securing AI applications.
Start your AI journey with the Microsoft Education AI Toolkit, a comprehensive guide for educational organizations to plan AI implementations. The toolkit introduces a variety of technologies—Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and more—and showcases successful implementations through AI Navigators—institutions leading the way with research, experimentation, testing, and deployment of generative AI solutions. It’s easy to implement these tools with step-by-step instructions to offer educators, technology coordinators, and policy makers practical guidance to support deployment, usage, and best practices.
Teaming up with Pearson on AI workforce skilling
The demand for training in AI-based skills has never been higher according to a global IDC study. To help meet this demand, Microsoft is teaming up with Pearson to bring world-class learning and assessment expertise with cutting-edge AI and cloud technologies. Microsoft Cloud and Office certifications are now more accessible to help organizations realize the full value of AI through reskilling.
Learn more about the advancements in AI
Don’t miss out on the latest announcements to learn about new AI-powered products and features designed to support your educational organization. We’re thrilled to announce these new AI solutions:
- Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat – a new offering that adds pay-as-you-go agents to our existing free chat experience for Microsoft 365 education customers.
- Copilot+ PCs – the fastest, most intelligent and secure Windows PCs ever, featuring enhanced security, optimized performance, and AI-integrated experiences. Now with code name Project Spark—our first education-focused Windows 11 app for Copilot+ PC—to bring on-device intelligence to your classroom.
- Microsoft Education AI Toolkit – designed for education leaders, access these updated tools and support you need for your institution’s AI implementation.
- Khanmigo for Teachers – offers over 20 free, AI-powered tools to help streamline class prep with no prompting required. Learn how to get started.
- Khanmigo Writing Coach – designed by educators, using AI to make essay writing dynamic, interactive experience and provide students with step-by-step guidance from outline to final draft without ever writing a word for them.
- Learning Accelerators – new tools like Reading Coach and Math Progress bring personalized learning to students and are available in over 80 languages.
- Minecraft Education – the newly expanded AI skills program, AI Foundations, offers a new student credentialing pathway in AI offered through Prodigy Learning. Educators can also use the free AI-powered Lesson Crafter tool to build new Minecraft lessons and practice prompting.2
Follow me on LinkedIn to stay up to date with new ways to use Copilot Chat in education through my “Prompt of the Week”.
1 IDC InfoBrief: Sponsored by Microsoft, 2024 Business Opportunity of AI, IDC# US52699124, November 2024
2 Requires sign in with a faculty account from your school.
