Build 2024: Microsoft Partners with Khan Academy on AI in Education

This morning at Build 2024, Microsoft announced a partnership with Khan Academy to spread the use of AI in education.

“Teachers are super overworked,” Khan Academy founder Sal Khan says. “Record numbers of teachers are leaving the profession. School districts in underserved areas have been especially hard hit, with teachers citing low pay and unmanageable workloads exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic as some of the top reasons they are giving up on teaching. Using AI for education isn’t just a powerful way to potentially help accelerate student learning, it’s also a way to make teaching more sustainable.”

Microsoft is bringing Khan Academy’s AI-powered teaching assistant, Khanmigo for Teachers, to all K-12 educators in the United States for free. The service is powered by the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, with Microsoft donating the resources needed for this increased availability. Khan Academy estimates that these tools save teachers an average of 5 hours per week and spend more time focusing on their students.

Microsoft and Khan Academy are also collaborating on a new effort to improve math tutoring using a new version of Microsoft’s Phi-3 small language model (SLM). This new SLM is being trained on Khan Academy’s related educational content, which includes math problems and step-by-step answers.

Finally, the two companies are also collaborating to bring Khan Academy’s educational content to more learners via Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Teams for Education.