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Wrapping Up the Big Three Commercial LMS / VLE Users Conferences
122 Plays4 days ago
The conversation explores the current state of online education, focusing on the recent conferences of major LMS providers like Anthology, D2L, and Instructure. Key themes include Anthology's financial struggles and AI strategy, D2L's new features and user adoption, and Instructure's bold AI initiatives. The discussion highlights the potential for significant changes in the LMS market driven by AI, while also addressing the challenges and uncertainties faced by these companies.
takeaways
- Anthology is facing significant debt restructuring issues.
- The Blackboard AI feature set is showing value to customers.
- AI is becoming a central focus for LMS providers.
- D2L's Fusion Conference showcased a more confident approach.
- User adoption of AI features is still in early stages.
- Instructure's IgniteAI represents a bold new direction.
- There is a disconnect for Canvas between product development and user needs.
- Continuing education remains a key area for growth.
- The LMS market is at a critical juncture after 30 years.
- The impact of AI on user behavior is still uncertain.
- Future market dynamics will depend on how these companies deliver on their promises.
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Transcript
Return from Hiatus & Reflections on AI
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Online Education Across the Atlantic after a little bit of a hiatus after our LEADS conference while Morgan and I did some LMS VLE users conferences.
00:00:24
Speaker
But as we head into the end of season two, We really wanted to wrap back and talk about what we've actually learned in this market ah and where things are pointing. And obviously, there's going to be a healthy dosage of ai conversation within this context as well.
00:00:42
Speaker
So it's great seeing you two again. And Neil, go ahead and take us through this conversation.
Conference Travels & Observations
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's good to be back and good to see you guys. um So yeah, you guys have been busy, haven't you? Because you traveled over to Leeds, which was the last time we recorded podcast. And then ah was it prior to that or after that that you were at the conferences? I forget now.
00:01:05
Speaker
Well, it was sort of a mix. I did the Open edX conference right before Leeds, but then the other ones were all after we, actually just a few days after we got back.
00:01:17
Speaker
Yep. So you've been traveling across the US. Morgan ah managed to avoid Las Vegas. Is that right? That is absolutely right. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. A win, I would say.
00:01:28
Speaker
Brilliant.
Anthology's Financial Challenges & Strategy
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think what what we thought um this episode is that we'd um and focus in on the three VLAR, LMS companies who had conferences recently. So Anthology and Blackboard, Instructure and instruct in Canvas.
00:01:43
Speaker
detail on bright space um and uh i'd kind of grill you guys on uh some of the things that you were uncovered there some of the conversations you might have had um so maybe if we start off with anthology because we had a podcast recording ah couple of episodes back didn't we where we were talking about maybe some of the expectations around that um side of things and for the different companies so I think one of the things that we ah probably collectively focused on in terms of anthology was the kind of current status of the company. And so guess just interested to know, um you know, what what you found out about the current status of anthology in terms of issues that they have around debt restructuring, what your expectations are, what the buzz was around that in the conference, whether it was kind of spoken about much. Phil, I think did you were at the Anthology Together conference, right? I'm the one who got to go to Las Vegas and and got to spend, what, $9 per bottle of water. By the way, just an interesting Vegas note, ah all kinds of stories are coming out lately about how the tourism industry is going way down in Vegas. Part of it's because of the Canadians not wanting to come to the U.S.,
00:02:57
Speaker
But another part of it is they're just pricing themselves out of the market. I mean, it's just the, you know, the prices for dinner on the Strip are just getting stupid. um So it was a little bit of a, if if you want to start off with a vibe, a little bit ah not too encouraging for the city, but that might mean there are fewer conferences there.
00:03:18
Speaker
but ah So going into anthology, i mean, I think that our discussion ah ahead of the event really captured the issues quite well. I mean, in one sense, nothing really changed at the conference from what we said ahead of time, other than we weren't sure if they were going to address the company's debt situation at all.
00:03:40
Speaker
And there was a clear answer that publicly they did not. So basically at the conference, in the keynotes, um They didn't address the fact that right now they're facing a debt restructuring or bankruptcy and are seeking to sell off Blackboard, although that looks less and less likely over time that that's going to happen.
00:04:03
Speaker
Which means that bankruptcy, um ah restructuring, keeping the company alive, um is more likely. And none of this was actually addressed at the conference. So it was sort of strange that they just didn't even try to head it off at all.
00:04:20
Speaker
um And, there you know, there is a piece of me saying, well, I wonder if it's just analysts who care about this and that the regular colleges and universities don't really care.
00:04:33
Speaker
But that's not really true because and during all the lunch conversations, the hallway conversations, the private interviews, You heard a very different story that, you know, most of the meetings that the executives are having, they're having to answer questions about the company's financial status right up front.
00:04:52
Speaker
And so it's there. Colleges and universities do care about it. They're asking about
Transparency in Financial Discussions: D2L vs Anthology
00:04:59
Speaker
it. Yet it was sort of interesting from a messaging perspective. They avoided it But I have to say, it wasn't as if people in the sessions were saying, hey, what's going on you know why aren't You know, what's going to happen? Are you going to still be in business or whatever the case may be?
00:05:18
Speaker
So they took a bet to avoid the topic publicly, even though they acknowledge it's happening all all the time. And You know, from a conference perspective, that that certainly worked out for them. So, I mean, there's obviously more to cover, but that was the biggest surprise that I saw.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah. So, um at D2L, they changed the format for analysts. And I realize that's a very small and and select group. But, um you know, sometimes as an analyst, you you meet with people one-on-one or sometimes you meet with other analysts.
00:05:55
Speaker
um but But here they had a full on meeting of all the analysts. So there were the the people that cover the product like me and um Justin Menard from Listed Tech. and And they had all the financial analysts as well, all in one meeting. And that was fascinating.
00:06:11
Speaker
And we really enjoyed that. But I suspect that that was not what they did Anthology. That would have provided some ah ah fireworks, I think. Yeah, well, I mean, i you know, acknowledging the fact that D2L is publicly traded. So I think that changes that. And the way they're their tone as a company, I think, is also different that that they might
Anthology's AI Adoption & Customer Feedback
00:06:32
Speaker
do that.
00:06:33
Speaker
At Anthology, it was very open. with the product, and what you're calling the product analyst or, you know, myself, IDC, Gartner, um you know, Justin as well with Listed Tech.
00:06:49
Speaker
They acknowledge the debt situation in the analyst meeting, um which is a private meeting. um So they acknowledge that and we had a short conversation about it.
00:07:00
Speaker
Nobody else is writing about it or at least publicly writing about it, which I don't see how you can cover them as a company and not mention this. But, um yeah, it didn't we didn't have that mix the way you're talking about. So that it was this weird thing, you know, very open, but not on the main stage and not with the main messaging.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, i I mean, personally, I feel like it makes sense to not say anything from the front because in in one sense, it's kind of inconclusive, isn't it? I mean, it's an issue that they can only say so much about, um but can't really offer anything conclusive in terms of what's going to happen.
00:07:39
Speaker
next. um So that kind of makes sense to me. But it's interesting to me that that there was a topic of conversation outside of the sessions, because I think, again, this is maybe something that we brought up last time, I'm always interested the extent to which this kind of news filters through because we we haven't had it.
00:07:55
Speaker
I mean, you're talking about the reporting in the u US s around this kind of stuff and the lack of it, we haven't had really anything here. So I'm not sure um how um how kind of widely spread that news is and the potential anxiety and considerations it might um bring about in terms of institutions and thinking about that side of things over here. I'm really not sure about that. but Well, I think the vendors, well, actually, I know this, that the their competitors, Instructure and Ellucian in particular, they're actively bringing this up during competitive bids. They're telling potential customers, right?
00:08:34
Speaker
ah you know, pay attention to the debt situation. We don't know what's going to happen. um So maybe if you're a university who's not in an evaluation, you might not be seeing the news, but at least when they're being evaluated, I know it's getting brought up by other people. um And just one final note, then we could maybe get on to the other stuff about them as well.
00:08:58
Speaker
I mean, I guess the reason i bring it up, if I were them, I know the most consistent issue they have to deal with is that higher education's unsophisticated in financial analysis.
00:09:11
Speaker
So when they hear bankruptcy, there are a lot of people saying, oh, you're going to go out of business. a Blackboard might cease to exist. And the answer is no no, no, This is Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This is restructuring debt while you continue to operate.
00:09:26
Speaker
And the company's already done most of the cost cutting that it can do or a lot of the cost cutting. So they have to get out there saying, no, this is not even an option about no company.
00:09:38
Speaker
So if I were them, but I guess I'm not them. If I were them, I would have made that my message. We're going nowhere. We might have to deal with debt, but it's in the background and we can make this work.
00:09:50
Speaker
um But, you know, it was just interesting to see how they chose to approach it. And I have to admit, I think that it worked. um And most of the focus really was on the product changes, you know, and broad-based, not just Blackboard. But, yeah, they they successfully focused on the product and what they're doing.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, because that makes sense to me in that, you know, some of the analysis you've youve done doesn't point to this necessarily being a product that's suddenly going to disappear. but I think, I guess the concern is, would probably be allied to the fact that you, you know, are you going to have a consistent strategy? that Because, of the you know, the product's been developing and in particular ways and, you know, they but we talked about before how they have really kind of gone all in on AI in a way that others haven't.
00:10:39
Speaker
And like I think one of my questions and my concerns relative to what happens in the future is that's been a direction that we've noticed over ah the past couple of years.
00:10:53
Speaker
If there was a substantive change, a sale, like what would that do for that strategy? But anyway, that's kind of by the by. Yeah. On that point though, I'm just interested, um you know, did the conference announcements in terms of how the product developed kind of just further reinforce what they've been doing around AI? You know, they they kind of very much, I think one of their messages is, you know, we were the first to um have AI natively in in our LMS, but just be interesting to pick out some of the kind of key product announcements around ah AI and what you thought of those.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, i mean the short answer is they're doubling down on their AI strategy. And at least right now, I mean, there's no indication of change on that strategy at all. And they're making it work.
00:11:39
Speaker
You raise a good question about if there happens to be a sale, would that change things? But... We don't know. At the conference and what they're demonstrating, they keep going the same direction.
00:11:50
Speaker
The biggest difference I've noticed is this year, you're not just seeing AI-based product enhancements and seeing numbers such as the number of schools adopting course builder or whatever.
00:12:04
Speaker
This is the first conference where I think you could just roam the halls, talk to people at lunch and hear from customers directly saying, oh, we're fully using this AI feature and this is the one we like and here's how we adopt it.
00:12:20
Speaker
So it's really moved into actual adoption by a lot of customers where the biggest information I got was from them. Up on stage and what they announce, very important.
00:12:34
Speaker
But even more important for me was the fact that you could talk to customers who are using stuff that was announced a year ago. And one of the ones that I heard the most but about was the ah rubric builder. So basically, once you're designing a course and you want to create a rubric for assessment, being able to actually get AI to generate that and natural that rubric, and then you can fine tune it and actually use it. And I've heard from a couple of schools who said that is the biggest time saver. They like the course builder. They like some of the other things. They like the data.
00:13:11
Speaker
But like there's individual tools like that where customers are really saying they're saving time and they're saying this is changing our view of what Blackboard does for the better.
00:13:23
Speaker
So same strategy, but we're moving into the real usage cases you can talk to customers about. Now as far as product announcements, one of the big parts that they did was this AVA, the Anthology Virtual Assistant, which is really getting into, you know, chatbot support, tutoring, however you want to frame it.
00:13:45
Speaker
So not just use AI to do this function. You know, once you're in the rubric building, click the button and have it work. This is getting more into a conversational approach.
00:13:57
Speaker
And so they certainly announced that. And, you know, there are other things that are out there, but the similar strategy, but they just keep moving along. But before I'll sort of turn it over and get additional thoughts, because I know you guys have, you know, read the analysis but seen their press releases, Blackboard Anthology, and specifically Nico Mathis,
00:14:23
Speaker
has got the best presentation of AI that I've seen. They actually don't just say we're doing this. They give timeframes.
00:14:33
Speaker
They give the context of when things are going to be available if they're not available today. So it's just a very mature product management approach that lends a lot of credibility to what they're doing.
00:14:46
Speaker
And so these two topics combined are why i framed it in my post about if only they had a time machine. Go make these product improvements and changes, but if they could have done it years ago when they weren't having to deal with a debt restructure.
00:14:59
Speaker
I think we'd have a different story right now if that were true. So that was what I saw. I think there was an odd... attention. Their product announcements are great. I wish everybody would just do it just like Nico does. you know it's It's clear, the dates are clear, everything else.
00:15:21
Speaker
Blackboard back in the day had a communication problem. They told people what they wanted to hear, not what was actually the truth or what was really happening. And and there seems a contrast there.
00:15:31
Speaker
When it comes to product, they're being very clear, everything like that. But when it comes to the debt, they're going back to their old habits of of not telling people things. Well, they're not telling, but at least they're not telling people wrong things. that that So, yes. yeah to Give them credit for that, I guess.
00:15:49
Speaker
But it is an interesting observation. Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe it's a reflection on, you know, the different levels of confidence, you know, maybe, you know, to not to to kind of firm be positive about them, maybe, you know, they they are and very clear and confident in their roadmap for the product such that they can be more clear and less confident.
00:16:10
Speaker
um you know, less driven by what they think people want to hear. I mean, i yeah, I thought it was interesting with the virtual assistant. and I thought some of the some of the features were but interesting. I felt the the feedback assistant where it kind of generates feedback from and from rubrics and you can you can basically take your unformed notes and ideas around feedback on stuff and it can kind of polish those up with kind of and interesting feedback um ah advancement, I suppose, in terms of what they're doing. But there's also kind of interest of a couple of interesting things on Ava for me were, so the automation one was really interesting around the kind of, so this is personalized nudges and messages to students that are based on
00:16:54
Speaker
um that kind of rules-based side of things. And I thought that was interesting because that was that didn't strike me as a particularly um ah particularly advanced feature, but it was wrapped within a set of features that were more advanced. It struck me as something that might have been able to be implemented actually a number of years ago, way before...
00:17:15
Speaker
actually chat GPT and everything kind of launched on the scene so that was interesting for me and and ah correct me if I'm wrong that felt like that was the only one that was clearly kind of just going to be part of Blackboard going forward I think the others had like a time scale in terms of when ah when they might be available for. And I think, I don't know, I don't know whether that's accurate, Phil, or not, but that's what I... I think there, I mean, there's a lot of things they have available today that they've said are free or, you know, included in your bundle.
00:17:49
Speaker
There are a couple things, like I believe the video, ah this gets outside of AI, the video thing that they announced and how that's getting adopted. where they've said, okay, it's free for another year, but it's not clear what the future bundled pricing is going to be. So it's sort of a mix. I think you have both cases um that you're seeing from them.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, because I... i in my In my mind, where my my thinking goes around what you were saying around adoption and also the way that they're developing things and that kind of and pricing thing is I i feel like they have been very deliberate in offering a lot of things for free.
00:18:33
Speaker
And I think that ties in with the adoption point as well. And we kind of, we could juxtapose that with maybe the D2L approach for kind of add-ons and stuff. But I think... i guess Yeah, that might be a good segue into that. But I will point out that um one thing, it's last year, it felt like they're throwing everything in. And desperate might be a little bit pejorative. But, you know, they're throwing things in and trying to say see what sticks. Yeah.
00:19:00
Speaker
see if that helps with adoption. This year, they certainly have kept with the, hey, you're not going to have to pay for this at least for another year type of mentality.
00:19:12
Speaker
But it felt more organized to me. um It didn't feel as, you know, let's throw it against the wall and see what sticks, see what helps out. So it's, um, Yeah, they're going definitely with the include this to goose adoption in a meaningful way. That's that's their bet.
00:19:31
Speaker
there I don't see any signs they're going to change that pending the debt restructuring. And next year, I mean, so a couple of these new features, they've said that it's included until July 2026. So I think we'll learn but ah learn a lot next year. But right now it seems consistent to me. Yeah.
00:19:53
Speaker
It still felt to me like, and and this is more of a cross-cutting point, but it still so felt to me a lot of the features and the product developments are focused on instructors still but there was something in Ava that interests me which is this kind of is it Ava Playground where it's like yeah and i I wasn't clear on what that was it said that it gave students access to a bunch of generative AI models I wasn't sure whether those are kind of Yeah, I don't know what they meant by that. I know if you got any clarity on that and what they were aiming for. It's an access play. What happens if you have students who don't have money or their school is not ponying up for the different AI things?
00:20:36
Speaker
Here's a way you can provision it and let people play around with it and you know you're not dealing with a digital divide. That's sort of the general message. The second thing is sort of ah safe area to play around, i encourage people to play around and learn what AI is.
00:20:54
Speaker
um I don't want to be negative. I didn't have much interest in that. um I didn't have much interest when instructor announced the same thing. But um so it may sound like I'm also instructor centric.
00:21:07
Speaker
That one didn't feel that very well thought out. I didn't hear reactions of, oh, thank goodness, that's what we just wanted. So that was one of the least interesting features that I heard about.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if i'm if I'm being slightly controversial, I do feel like um anthology are the strongest when it comes to virtue signaling around AI, transparency and ethics and that side of things in terms of their messaging.
00:21:36
Speaker
ah And I think that it interested me looking at the playground thing because he said um all like activities logged for transparency was the word, but... but instructors can see what how students are using AI and there's an interesting juxtaposition between this idea of transparency and giving students a tool and equitable access but actually the instructor is able to see what's happening as well which is you know i thought was potentially threw up an ethical um dilemma that wasn't sort of necessarily addressed, but maybe that's just an aside. I don't know. it was just interesting in that in that sense.
00:22:14
Speaker
um were Were there any other themes coming out? I mean, I i guess, you know, um we're focused on the LMS VLE products, but these companies also have other products. And i just interested in whether there was a strong emphasis on any of the products,
00:22:31
Speaker
what Well, I mean, their messaging is centered around student information systems, CRM and LMS. Those are the three pillars of what they do. um The SIS, it's the parent company's main product, you know, if you will.
00:22:47
Speaker
But um there's not much there that really ties into what we talk about on the educational side. The CRM is a little bit different. So they definitely are playing up REACH, which is their CRM.
00:23:00
Speaker
and pointing out, hey, if you have a faculty member who wants to easily nudge students because they've said these students are turning things in late or at risk and I'm going to nudge them, that nudge, that type of communication, they're now tying it into the CRM. So what that means is advisors, student support people will be able to see what faculty have been interacting and they can take it and that can inform them as they're supporting students outside of the classroom.
00:23:31
Speaker
So there was a CRM tie-in, but there's not a whole lot of overlap of people using their LMS and CRM. So it was like a nice job, but I don't think there are that many people, it's not going to really move the needle except for that subset of schools that really do that. So yeah, there was non-LMS news, but ah I didn't pay too much attention to it, to be quite honest, other than how it informed what's happening in the classroom and the LMS side.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. And the one thing I picked up from your post, Phil, was that um Learn Original hase um has has a date for its demise, shall we say. Yeah, the end of next year. So a year and a half for Original goes away, which is good. I think they should have done that before.
00:24:25
Speaker
um Because it allows them to focus on here's our LMS and here's what it does. And let's just look forward. So I thought that was really good. But that is a huge milestone that that that they an announced it.
00:24:38
Speaker
And there wasn't a big outcry against it that you might think. That sort of backs up my point. I should have done this a while ago. a long time ago. Yeah, yeah. Definitely should have done that a long time ago. So it was newsworthy, but at the same time, it didn't generate much interest. And that's good news for them.
00:24:57
Speaker
Yeah, I was thinking to myself, I don't know how to commemorate that, that that day. I'm not sure whether to wistfully look back on my use of that in universities or to celebrate or or what, but it was, I don't know, it had a reaction, had some kind of reaction, you know, I don't know whether fondness or happiness.
00:25:19
Speaker
Like, like I guess we'll maybe at the end we'll kind of talk a bit about this, but I just wondered what your kind of top line impressions and around like the health of the company. I know we talked about the debt, but just generally the vibe coming out of that conference and and the future trajectory.
D2L's Fusion Conference Experience
00:25:38
Speaker
Well, it it all depends on this debt restructuring. the The company as is in the way it's being managed, it's outside of their SIS and some of the service problems, which I think they're dealing with.
00:25:52
Speaker
I think that in general, the company feels healthier and healthier. And if it weren't for the debt, I would be saying, hey, I think that it's going to become a three horse race again. um Them joining Canvas and D2L with new adoptions.
00:26:06
Speaker
um If it weren't for that. So it gives us, it will get resolved this fall. So this fall, we'll find out. it's It's going to make that news really interesting.
00:26:18
Speaker
But otherwise, top line reaction was very positive for them. Yep. Well, perhaps we might move on to one of their competitors, D2L, because I think, Morgan, you went to the D2L Fusion Conference in Georgia. Am I right?
00:26:33
Speaker
Yes, and in Savannah, which was boiling hot. um even Even hotter than Leeds? Yes. Okay. very It was sweltery and hot, but um it was a lovely hotel, except I arrived in the middle of the night and I wasn't sort of sure where it was. And I i went to bed and I woke up to this enormous noise and I rushed and looked out the window and there was a giant container ship going right past my window really close.
00:27:03
Speaker
those just Are those as loud as freight trains? freight train They were pretty loud, yeah. um And you you don't really expect to see a ah container ship outside your window like really close. So that that made for some ah some excitement. But yeah, it was it was in Savannah, a very sweltery Savannah. And you most of us landed up having to catch a ferry across across the river to get to the convention center, which made for some it made for a journey every morning.
00:27:33
Speaker
But going back, like, I know you—well, I think a lot of us dislike the Vegas, the Orlando type things. Did you get a good, hey, but I'm in a nice medium to smaller-sized city with some great local food? Did you get the benefits of it, though?
00:27:49
Speaker
It was too hot. um yeah know And and and maybe um you know maybe I'm just getting a wussy in my old age, but— um i i I certainly had a couple of nice meals, but but yeah, it was mostly just too difficult to get around. It was like it was like swimming, and it smelled bad because it was it was hot. Well, you have to go back when it's not as hot and humid there. Yes, Savannah has changed. I haven't been there in 10 years, and it's changed a lot. It's much more built up and and and so on. so
00:28:22
Speaker
But yeah, no it was ah I mean, in general, it was a nice place. It was a nice venue and certainly i much prefer it to to Vegas. I'd go to Savannah on the hottest week of the year rather than and Vegas.
00:28:36
Speaker
I feel like the trip advisor component of the conference isn't faring so well. We got expensive meals in Vegas, too hot for good food in Savannah. and Yeah.
00:28:47
Speaker
Justin was trying to persuade me to start a regular feature on the blog about conference food.
00:28:55
Speaker
i I think there'd be pop people who follow that. Yeah. yeah Yeah. I'll start with Moodle. Yeah. Very good. Very good. ah Because am I right? You hadn't been to Detail Fusion for a little while, but I just wondered, like, I think in your post you were talking about maybe the the contrast from when you were last there to to now. I'm just interested to, yeah.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't been since 2019, I think. So, you know, because of either... a pandemic or being at Gartner or it falling on the same week and Phil and I having to split it up. So I hadn't been in a while, but it felt like a very different sort of place, much more hopeful, much more confident.
00:29:39
Speaker
um And, you know, I made a joke about the
00:29:46
Speaker
container ships were bringing the updates and it felt like that there was a lot announced. um you know in terms of new features around AI, yeah with the Loanwise partnership, as well as other other kinds of things. So it was a very confident kind of kind of place and and and a lot of sort of forward-looking things.
00:30:06
Speaker
but I'm interested in the LearnWise relationship because they made a lot of ah um feature announcements for Lumi. um and And wasn't and immediately clear to me which one of those equated to the LearnWise relationship or whether all of them equated to that LearnWise relationship.
00:30:26
Speaker
Only some of them. And like me, you're confused about it. So in general, their messaging has become very clear. But like I had a real problem where the... um the then The names given were different depending on whether you went to the the LearnWise booth in the convention center or if youre from the main stage or um from the page that they put up. So it was confusing in in terms of what things were. That would be one sort of criticism there.
00:30:58
Speaker
because I feel like that's a bit of a theme in general. I was thinking about this earlier today in terms of, you know, a bit of a timeline of AI features in LMS. And I feel like, and i think this is understandable to an extent because it's kind of a new thing, but and certain things get layered upon um as as established things.
00:31:19
Speaker
Certain things get incorporated into other things. Certain things kind of go away and get rebadged or something. I think, I think the Lumi one is interesting because you've got so, I'm trying to keep up with how many, you've got Lumi Chat and Lumi Study Spot and Lumi this, and then you've got ah ah bad Creator Plus and access and Accessibility Plus now. and yeah I get that we're in that phase of um AI product development, but I think that is an interesting dimension of it the kind of level of confusion around the features and how they're labeled and how they're packaged together and uh loom i don't know how many features loomi has now i can't keep up i don't know off the top of my head but there's quite a few but i think yeah i mean they've got a they've got an interesting tension here and maybe it is a a question of where they are in this progression but
00:32:16
Speaker
Everything has a different name. And I wonder if it wouldn't be just to call it Lumi and there are these features and and features come and go so that it's less less of a lift. well but One thing I would add in is there's sort of a different approach, it sounds like, because Blackboard Anthology, they have various features, but they haven't really tried to tie it in to one brand.
00:32:40
Speaker
And like Ava is Ava. But D2L also has multiple different features, but then they've attempted to wrap their arms around it with the Lumi brand.
00:32:52
Speaker
But then there's a confusion about, well, what do you mean? And so it's a very different approach between the two. Yeah. and And I'm not sure it's the right one at D2L at the moment. I think yeah it'll start to get confusing, especially as some things aren't going to work, so they're going to have to take it away.
00:33:09
Speaker
um you know, or and and and put other things in there, you know. So i think it's it's for the same reason back in the day, I used to encourage people to not call their LMS by the brand name because when you swap it out, people get all upset.
00:33:25
Speaker
what What were the features that stood out for you, Morgan, at the conference? um So not necessarily just in Lumi, but ah the Accessibility Plus, I think, is a huge a huge thing and and clients were very excited about that.
00:33:42
Speaker
So, you know, that that sort of garnered a lot of things. There's the CreateSpace, which I think is an interesting thing. I'm sort of fascinated by it. I'm not sure it's going to work.
00:33:55
Speaker
um I think it'll be a great feature for large enterprise centralized places that have to share content and things like that. So places like Southern New Hampshire, like Purdue Global and and those sorts of American companies. So for more team-based content development?
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, because it's you create in CreateSpace and you can version down the road. You'll be able to version and and share and and push updates out and things like that. So it's a content management system, really.
00:34:26
Speaker
um ah But, you know, they're they're They were describing it as the content management system for 2025 as opposed to the old ones. But, you know, I just don't think we know enough about how faculty work and that sort of really personal kind of way that they create content. So I'm not sure that your average faculty member will want that or or use it or or or share it.
00:34:52
Speaker
um And I'm happy to be wrong, but I just don't think people typically work that way. Yeah, I think, I actually think you could almost make a similar argument to the H5P Creator Plus as well, because, and I think both of those things, both the CreateSpace and H5P really appealed to me on the back of experience of working on online platforms.
00:35:19
Speaker
courses, you know, it I think it aligns more closely with that. And i think that's a point you made in your post-Morgan. So in that sense, that makes sense to me in terms of ah a because a strategic theme for them. But the extent to which your regular instructor, if such a thing exists,
00:35:38
Speaker
is using interactive tools and using kind of collaborative commute ah content development. and i think, yeah, i'd I'd love to have some data on that, but I'm just anecdotally, I'm not sure how how um how common that is. But I think that kind of ties in with something i was going to ask, which kind of contrasts with what Phil was saying around anthology.
00:36:03
Speaker
I got the impression when I was at the D2L event in Europe that I wasn't sure the extent to which people were adopting some of these AI features. And so I'm interested, you know, Phil's saying Anthology have got that year behind them where people seem to be using a lot of their AI features and are reporting, you know, positive broadly positively about that. Did you get that sense at the D2L conference or not?
00:36:28
Speaker
No, because it's way early. I mean, you this was, this was, A lot of them are much newer, um i think. So I didn't get a lot of, um and and some of them aren't even there yet.
00:36:41
Speaker
So I think it'll be a ah next year catch up or when you go to whatever ah salubrious place in Europe you're going this year for D2L as opposed to sweltering Savannah.
00:36:52
Speaker
um it it it Given the time of year, it'll definitely be colder. Yes. Definitely colder. What about the reaction to it? Because even if there's not adoption, there's sort of a question of, are they hitting the mark? um You know, there's a weird sense, and and and I thought about this, and I didn't write about it, but I i thought about it, and i was I was going to for a while. But there's this odd
00:37:19
Speaker
I hesitate to use the word disjuncture because maybe I've overused it, but um you know companies roll out these big features that they've put a lot of thought into, a lot of effort and things like that.
00:37:31
Speaker
And to an extent, there's a very muted response. And certainly at D2L, there was a muted response to the AI thing um and and to some of the other sorts of things like um you create space, list less less with accessibility plus And then it's the tiny, as as one D2L person put it, the ankle biters that get all the excitement. You know, it was print print quiz that got everybody cheering and dancing in the it in the, in the, in the hallways, you know, um and, and it it must be a bit depressing if you're an accompanist, you, you've sort of thrown a lot of stuff into this, but it was, it was a muted
D2L's H5P Integration Success
00:38:12
Speaker
response. Cause I think nobody sort of really in in part, cause it was confusing in a way, like what exactly is it, you know, um
00:38:20
Speaker
ah ah how is it going to work? How am I going to roll it out and things like that. Whereas print quiz, they know what that is and they've wanted it for a while.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah, I did think what was notable on some of the Lumi announcements, though, were a couple of features for students. So they had a study support tool and they had a tutor tool. And, you know, I think it'd be ah it would wouldn't be right to say the others haven't developed stuff that students can't use. But I feel ah felt like um there was a bit more of a flavour of a focus on learners and actually i think looking at some of their product pages i think they do you have a ah differentiation between stuff for instructors and maybe designers and students so yeah i think that was coming out a bit more which is interesting it'd be interesting to see um you know whether the impacts of that as well also sort of ah a bigger picture like you can bring other data into a lot of these things so you can bring you know um
00:39:23
Speaker
help desk data and and CRM data and things like that, rather than just a very confined space within the LMS. I wanted to go back to H5P. Do we have to say H5P because we have Neil here? Yeah, you you do. Yeah, but it's in the contract.
00:39:42
Speaker
But I was sort of impressed by how much progress they'd made, you know, because they just announced it last year at the conference. And already there's a lot of different ways that H5P is built into things.
00:39:54
Speaker
Sorry, I can't say, okay. ah You know, so it's it's in quizzes and and and those sort of things. and And actually talking to clients at lunch and and things like that, they were excited about about those kinds of things. They were pretty stoked about the H5P. Some of them, know, they were just learning, but but but others were pretty excited.
00:40:14
Speaker
Interesting. It interesting because, I mean, last year, since you and I swapped last year, you were in StructureCon, I was at D2L. The H5P, which was a big announcement, it came out of the blue. A lot of the employees didn't even know about it.
00:40:30
Speaker
So really, they've only had a year to figure out this integration. so based on what you're saying, that actually makes it even more impressive. It truly is in the past year.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah. And actually, I will remember the H5P announcement forever because I was actually at the InstructureCon last year ah when when I saw your you you you you texted me or something like that. And right at that moment, somebody on the on the stage in the session I was in said, yeah, well, we're using H5P. And I said, D2L just bought them.
00:41:07
Speaker
So you were doing your version of what we saw 20 years ago when we had the LMS conference in California and somebody runs in, Blackboard bought WebCT. Yes, very loudly.
00:41:18
Speaker
ah Yes, I did that. I i tried to be less less loud and less obnoxious, but I probably failed. Sorry, presenter.
00:41:30
Speaker
but and were Were there any other things, you know, like we've we've talked a bit about the continuing education and side of things, like was was there anything in that realm or anything kind of wider in terms of product or types of client focus that suggests, you know, a particular trajectory and focus?
00:41:52
Speaker
No, that was that was a a source of frustration on my part. You know, there was very little about continuing education and very little about ah Mastery Connect, which was sort of weird because I bumped into a lot of people who were actually either Blackboard clients Canvas clients who were at D2L essentially to kick the tires from a continuing ed kind of perspective. So the fact that there was so little on D2L in the main stages, ah what was perplexing. so So that was weird.
00:42:27
Speaker
Where they talked about it was mostly in terms of corporate, which was a big focus for them. You know, they're really growing that, they're really emphasizing it. And it's really less corporate, though they, for example, have a big, have ah one of the speakers I did here was a guy from Komatsu, but mostly it was associations.
00:42:45
Speaker
um So it's sort of like that in between corporate and higher ed, but It was mostly in that sort of corporate space that that they were talking about it, which I thought was a lost opportunity, you know, just given that I kept bumping into people who were really interested in that space and and weren't using the product now.
00:43:02
Speaker
It's obviously a space that's just dying for more activity and and more attention. Everybody's sort of stumbling around on it. Yeah, it felt to me, think looking reading at your posts across the conference, that in terms of kind of more macro themes for education, there was a bit more on competency-based side of things, which is kind of very embryonic over here, but still getting a bit more interest, but less on the kind of continuing education, non-accredited kind of course space. Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
ah Just ah coming away from the conference, obviously D2L and Instructure have been kind of two of the most successful companies for implementations in recent years and growing their share.
00:43:45
Speaker
Like what you were your impressions coming away from the conference in terms of their prospects for the next 12 months? they were They were good. You know, it's that confidence I spoke to. You know, their messaging is much better for the most part.
00:43:59
Speaker
um You know, they're they're they're They're obviously getting at some of the things that are really driving users, ah with the exception of the the continuing education, but there certainly is growing interest and a growing confidence in a sense of, um you know, both both vision and execution, um I think.
00:44:21
Speaker
So, ah you know, they they they were touting some of their wins and and and win rate and, you know, um I think they're certainly a force to watch, you know, especially as they seem to have a growing maturity about stuff. One of one what of the leadership actually mentioned the phrase, i'm going to put on my we need to put on our big boy pants. You know, it's that sort of, you know, to make decisions which they may not have made in the past. For example, like the partnership with...
00:44:54
Speaker
um ah with the AI company rather than why building it yeah building it inside. and We should move on to um in Instructure because I think um i think what um what came across to me for the for Anthology and for D2L was and interesting new announcements, um but not necessarily ah massive gear shift from what you'd been expecting.
00:45:24
Speaker
But I feel like the Instructure conference is the one... I suppose ah in terms of over here had like really eye-catching news in terms of the OpenAI partnership, but I think there was kind of some more substantial stuff there with Ignite AI.
00:45:41
Speaker
ah So interested to get your thoughts and take and explanation of that, Phil.
Instructure's Shift in AI Strategy
00:45:47
Speaker
yeah Well, I'll start off since we're doing the location yeah news. Yeah, tell us about the food.
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, it was more of the whiskey. I mean, I found this place, Purgatory, that has a thousand bottles of whiskey, like a thousand different types of whiskey. And so you'd I ended up going there ah ah afterwards. Yeah.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that I went there five times during a two-and-a-half-day trip speaks to how good that place was, good place to eat, too. just felt like I was in purgatory, or at least close to hell in terms of the heat. That's right, yeah. Well, this, from a heat perspective, it was like Leeds. They're having a heat wave, so it's in the low the upper 20s centigrade, and people are apologizing. We're sorry it's so hot here. I'm like, what are you talking about? This is lovely weather.
00:46:37
Speaker
but um You're right, Neil. It was the biggest new information changes were happening at Instructure more than Anthology and D2L, certainly compared to what the three of us have talked about in the past.
00:46:55
Speaker
I thought that in our podcast episode where we kept highlighting the lack of coherence, that that trend felt, you know, continued through. There still is a lack of coherence.
00:47:07
Speaker
But they really came out with a much stronger, bolder bet into AI than you've seen in the past. In the past... I've made fun of them where seems like most of their AI strategy is defined on what they're not going to do, what they're going to enable partners to do for schools to do, other people to do ai This was the time where AI was all over the main stage. And you mentioned the two big things, Ignite AI, their branded, their internal tool that includes now or got announced the Ignite Chat, which is the chat bot that they've added to it. And that's central to their strategy.
00:47:50
Speaker
And then the OpenAI announcement. But before we get to the Ignite stuff, the OpenAI, it felt a lot like the Conmigo for the past two InstructureCons.
00:48:02
Speaker
Hey, we've got enough clout. We've got a famous person up on stage that got the head of product for OpenAI. He came out on stage. And the feeling was like, wow, Instructure, you've got enough pull that you've got OpenAI involved.
00:48:17
Speaker
coming out and making a message about how you're so special. However, there was nothing behind the announcement. What they announced... It wasn't clear, well, how is that different than what I could use for a OpenAI i with another vendor?
00:48:34
Speaker
um There was a little bit of it being embedded and pre-integrated. But then right after the conference, AI announces their OpenAI study mode. So they have this message where it's direct to consumer for learning applications.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yet they're also this big partner. So the OpenAI may have made a few headlines, but at the conference, it wasn't as big of a deal other than catching people off guard.
00:49:04
Speaker
So it was a surprise, a sort of wow, but it wasn't at all central to the strategy, in my opinion. And as a matter of fact, I talked to a lot of people who've been involved in the testing of the AI leading up to the conference, and none of them even knew about the OpenAI i announcement or knew how it fit in.
00:49:26
Speaker
So I don't want to 100% discount that, but I don't think that's the big part of their AI announcement. It just made for nice press releases and connections. The bigger change was on Ignite and how their whole strategy is built around using MCP, so basically ah integration layer between ll ah large language models and the application.
00:49:53
Speaker
And instead of just letting other people do that, Instructure is coming out saying, we're writing the MCP because we want to control access to all of our API and touch points and give a holistic AI solution.
00:50:10
Speaker
So on a practical term, what they're aiming to get to is take the rubric creation tool. They're saying, well, you shouldn't have to be in the rubric creation area to know to now hit a button and get it You should just be able to ask the chat anywhere in the system and say, go create this. I don't need to understand where to go in the LMS. Just go do this for me.
00:50:37
Speaker
And there will be the architecture to allow that chat to make the routing decisions and then go do it. So the bet they're making is that's going to make things a lot better in the future.
00:50:51
Speaker
And ah particularly your instructors and course designers to not have have to know their way around the LMS. That's what they're betting on. That was completely missing in previous years, if you will. That was the fundamental difference, I think, that I saw.
00:51:10
Speaker
um Yeah, i think i think I found that all of that so fascinating and interesting to think about because there's that sense in which it's a significant difference from some of the others. And they talked about how the others had kind of, you know, really developed these kind of plant-based solutions.
00:51:28
Speaker
um But it made me think about... um user behavior and to think you know I think we've already we've already and mentioned a few things that are less glamorous things that have got people excited and it may I feel sort of I feel slightly torn about what I think might happen in terms of user behavior and there's part of me that thinks oh well that's not how people engage with an LMS, will it be successful? But then, you know, when you're an instructor managing a lot of courses and having to navigate your way across, like there's a there's this kind of strong argument around, um you know, a method like that being much more efficient for you to kind of do it if it works.
00:52:16
Speaker
But I also, um i was i and a webinar came across my eyes today around Ignite AI, and maybe this is a bit unkind because it's kind of early days, but The things that it was talking about, Ignite AI being able to do, felt like AI product developments that they kind of announced in in the past. So I know it's a more holistic change to the way that you engage with an LMS, but I felt like the danger is it's a little bit light on what you can actually do with it.
00:52:52
Speaker
I don't know that's fair. Yeah. Well, no, it's definitely fair. So I mentioned the big bet they're making, but and I've said some of this in online conversations, particularly in LinkedIn.
00:53:03
Speaker
um Yes, I'm becoming one of those people who uses LinkedIn more. um But in any case, it's ah the message I just described was not clear from the main stage.
00:53:14
Speaker
It took me a lot of digging in private interviews to actually figure out what their strategy was. The main stage, they just mentioned AI, AI, but nothing with any delivery dates or any clarity.
00:53:30
Speaker
And it took me pushing back and talking to executives to finally figure out what I described to you. Now, once I did that, I went and looked at some of their press releases and a couple of media interviews, and I would see parts of that argument there.
00:53:46
Speaker
So I guess that wasn't the message from the stage. It took a lot of digging to get there. But the second thing is i use the word bet because even if they were fully delivering what they talked about, and that's something I want to cover because it's not at all clear that they are, even if that's true, it gets to your point.
00:54:06
Speaker
Is the market ready for that? Is that what user behavior is actually going to support? It sounds nice and white paper from a strategy perspective, but it's a bet.
00:54:18
Speaker
It's not at all clear that that's the way people are going to go. So if they're right and if they deliver, they're going to leapfrog Blackboard even. um but they have to first deliver and then determine if what you're raising is actually going to change, is actually what people want to do. Do they want to use a chat type of interface?
00:54:43
Speaker
to access so much of the LMS capabilities. So long that's a very long-winded way to say youre question is very fair. And I think it's one of the biggest questions moving forward, assuming that they can deliver on any of it in the first place.
00:55:02
Speaker
Yeah. And it's interesting to think about the agentic kind of approach as well, because I think When I was certainly looking at Blackboard and Brightspace, you know, they're really strong in emphasising, you know, they don't necessarily use this phrase, but the human in the loop.
00:55:20
Speaker
And I think the more you go down the agentic route, the more... It's not necessarily not a human in the loop, but that kind of whole approach is predicated on AI being having a bit more agency to do the things that you're asking it to do.
00:55:37
Speaker
And so i think that's another element of the bet. I mean, the way I think about it I'm... Because of the, um maybe that like lack of sense of clarity from Instructure in the past in terms of what their strategy is, I feel a little bit, um I don't have like loads of confidence.
00:55:55
Speaker
I like that they made this bet, I think, and it is a really distinguishing feature from the others but i'm I don't have strong confidence based on their track record about where this is going to go but I think is ah it's also interesting not in terms not just in terms of user behaviour but in terms of um the way this pushes things beyond the very what feels like a very safe approach of not wanting to push instructors out of their comfort zone with AI features a little bit as well as that kind of dimension of it which super interesting.
00:56:29
Speaker
Well, maybe that partially explains the lack of messaging of what their true strategy is. Trust me, they i would be willing to bet that they mentioned human in the loop at least as much as D2L and Blackboard. Their messaging was everywhere ad nauseum.
00:56:47
Speaker
It's security blanket. Yes, it was everywhere. And so possibly, you know, you're raising the point, hmm, you know, agentic is not necessarily the same as human in the loop.
00:57:01
Speaker
And so maybe they didn't want to push it too far because of the comfort zone. um But that is the bet they're making. oh and So that's what we need to track moving forward.
00:57:12
Speaker
The bigger issue for me is the fact of, do you believe any of it? Because i certainly believe there they're investing in re-architecting the platform and making a lot of engineering changes.
00:57:26
Speaker
But everything they showed on stage was, it wasn't even coming soon. It's like, in the future, you will be able to do this. And it wasn't clear, are you talking...
00:57:38
Speaker
It's already there. It's going to be there in the early fall. It's going to be there in 2026. None of that was clear or even mentioned during the show. And if you talk to the people who did some of the testing of these things, the early adopter testing, um i think they still have a lot of work to define the product properly moving forward. So step one is actually delivering.
00:58:03
Speaker
yeah And then you're talking about steps two and three and four. I think that ties in for me a little bit with the open AI side of things is that there's these, you know, I think the Ignite thing is really super interesting and eye-catching for me, as is the open AI thing, but it's the substance and and and the kind of concreteness of what we're actually talking about that kind of raises question marks in my head. But anyway,
00:58:36
Speaker
ah Like to the question i asked earlier around D2L, were there any other aspects of the kind of product suite? You know, obviously Instructure have a kind of wide product suite. Was there anything on continuing education? Yeah, the the kind of ta well, great segue.
00:58:52
Speaker
Canvas Career was actually one of the best received messages and the most interesting to me. So essentially they've taken a the Canvas back end, and they've sort of created a new continuing ed product on top of it.
00:59:09
Speaker
Where on the front end, they're streamlining it, they're making it much more AI and mobile first type of design, and they don't have the same constraints on what we talked about, instruction design ah for general higher education.
00:59:25
Speaker
And they developed a nice little package, and they even were able to say this is being tested this's being used now, but it will be fully released at the end of the year. So actual dates.
00:59:37
Speaker
And I just thought that was quite interesting. So let me emphasize that they had the strongest moves in continuing education of the three vendors. I was not expecting to feel that way because we've talked in the past how they're not doing much with catalog and where is this going.
00:59:56
Speaker
Canvas career is ah was, yeah, broader and quite interesting. Initially, it's more on the academy side. So ah they had one of the Olympic teams that they need to train all of the employees and keep track of it. So it's sort of corporate training and feel, but it's for a captive audience. It's sort of like a corporate academy, training academy.
01:00:25
Speaker
I asked them, however, well, are you going to broaden this out and accept e-commerce and more of a B2C type of approach and get into micro-credential support and making it easier to do that type of continuing education.
01:00:41
Speaker
The verbal answer is yes, and that's what I'm interested in seeing. So that one, well beyond AI, and I thought that was the most interesting news that
Instructure's Canvas Career & AI Focus
01:00:52
Speaker
I saw.
01:00:52
Speaker
To what extent is is parchment wrapped up in that, or was it it a part of that? ah Maybe if they're funding it, that's about it. There was no message of parchment. other Like Anthology, they're coming out with, here's our they call it their ecosystem. The three pillars are Canvas, the LMS.
01:01:12
Speaker
Mastery Connect, the assessment engine, more K-12, and Parchment. So on the logos and what they talk about, like here's the broad company in our ecosystem, they would say that.
01:01:25
Speaker
Then nothing beyond that. Beyond that, Parchment was purely standalone. There were no real discussions of how Parchment plays into Canvas' career. Parchment plays into the way Canvas is going. It just wasn't.
01:01:43
Speaker
talked about. arms And it it feels like a somewhat ah a holding company. They've got a successful company. They own it. Things are going smoothly. It's making money.
01:01:55
Speaker
But it's really not, from a product perspective, part of the ecosystem. It's just listed there as an important part of them. Now, maybe that'll change, but so far it did not play into the what you just asked about.
01:02:10
Speaker
Because last year, at times, it seems they were trying to figure out a way to make that sort of part of that journey, you know, transitioning from one thing to the other. But it seems like they haven't followed through with that.
01:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, the two things I did not hear this year that I think we heard last year that you had talked about and that I was i went through Vegas on the way home is ah parch how parchment fits into the ecosystem, actually changes the other products, and Conmigo.
01:02:37
Speaker
Both of those things were mentioned in the past, but like Conmigo just wasn't really spoken of much other than one or two panel sessions out there. So it just, I'm not saying that's the wrong strategy, but it they weren't publicly trying to figure out how it changes that life cycle.
01:02:55
Speaker
um It seemed like they even backed off trying to have do that messaging. I feel like this conversation makes me think that we should develop some very niche bingo cards for these different vendors and their conferences and what they... Well, I have a conference bingo card I'm going to unwrap soon, but... Yeah, think... By the way, that better... I can't remember if you have that in there or not, Morgan, but it better have something about AI is not replacing humans, so... Because that'll be one of the most popular squares. It's like a calculator.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so So that was the broader perspective. So there... um And the other one, the underlying tone of KKR is a different owner than Toma Bravo, both private equity, but there's a lot more of an investment for the future perspective happening this year than what I'd seen in previous years.
01:03:55
Speaker
Active, I feel like there's a lot of pressure from KKR, but it feels a lot more like you guys better figure out a way to grow and we're going to find out in three to five years if that's succeeding.
01:04:10
Speaker
Under Tama Bravo, it felt much more like you need to become profitable and we need to acquire companies in the next 12 months. So the KKR as an owner, it sounds weird for anybody who grew up in the 80s and thinking about KKR with Philip Morris and whatnot.
01:04:28
Speaker
That's much more of an investment-focused ownership for for them. So that was an underlying tone of we're not taking things for granted. We're investing.
01:04:41
Speaker
But, you know, there's a lot of questions about are they actually delivering the products that people want? And what were your reflections coming away from the conference based on conversations you had, just general vibes, if I can put it in that way, of their standing and future?
01:05:01
Speaker
um Well, though the the analogy that I used in my post. I'm talking about pre-whiskey as well. Oh, yeah. Before that yeah kind of kicked in. Another thing. Yeah. But it wasn't just whiskey. They had gri some of the best brisket I've had outside of Texas anywhere. I'm calling for literal and metaphorical sober judgment.
01:05:23
Speaker
ah Okay, okay, okay. Well, let me take a step back. um If I were Morgan, I'd be whipping out the disjuncture word. There's a big disconnect between engineering, investment, big ah AI visions and stuff like that.
01:05:41
Speaker
and what's actually happening on the ground. um And there's just a big disjuncture between them that I think is a growing challenge there.
01:05:52
Speaker
Now, to the degree that they make things work, wow, big bet, they might leapfrog. they're They're already the leaders, but they might become the leaders in multiple areas and really accelerate moving forward.
01:06:07
Speaker
However, if they don't deliver, and I'm not seeing evidence of them delivering, it's more of the Apple intelligence type of situation where they're losing credibility by talking about things but not delivering, and that when they deliver things, it's not hitting the mark to where people actually use it yeah and what they're really looking for.
01:06:32
Speaker
So disjuncture is the big takeaway, even though ah they have all of that investment and all of that strategy. So that makes it interesting for us. I've mentioned the two bets.
01:06:45
Speaker
Anthology, getting through the debt restructuring, and then structure if this bet, if they can deliver on the bet, and if the bet's going to pay off in terms of user behavior.
01:06:56
Speaker
It's going to be really interesting to
AI's Influence on LMS Market Dynamics
01:06:58
Speaker
watch. But It was not clear at the conference of, wow, these guys have it together and, yeah, this is what we're going to be seeing.
01:07:08
Speaker
feel like ah AI has really energized a lot of the product developments and and the differentiation of the companies. But I think this kind of maybe ties in with some of the stuff we said about the things that people get excited about relative to those things. Yeah.
01:07:24
Speaker
I mean what are your reflections coming out of these these conferences on on the kind of the impact of these things on things like implementations and and actual decisions around that? Because another area is where the rubber really hits the road. Because i think it's it's it's interesting for us to talk about the differentiation through AI strategies and the way the product's developing and the bets that people are making.
01:07:49
Speaker
But the extent to which that turns the dial on... you know, implementations of market share. I think it's just interesting. I think that sometimes in the past, we, and I'm probably the most at fault, have emphasized too much on new implementations and LMS switches.
01:08:07
Speaker
um And a lot of the news has been anthology using AI to slow down defections. And I'm seeing even more of it. And I'm talking to customers who are basically saying, hey, we're buying into this story. We're seeing the benefits. We're not switching.
01:08:27
Speaker
So to a degree, I think it's still very important. But a lot of times it comes across to who's not leaving and and making changes. yeah My personal view, AI is not it's not like the early MOOC phase of a lot of noise, but it really isn't directly impacting things.
01:08:45
Speaker
I think it is directly impacting things. I think we've got to figure it out. It's close to the level of Internet in terms of rethinking educational technology.
01:08:56
Speaker
um But so far, it's not changing LMS switches per se. But I think it's having a material impact on their product strategies and what customers are actually seeing and using.
01:09:12
Speaker
So I guess I'm bullish on the broad impact of AI, but not necessarily that we're going to start seeing a lot of product switches and then in the near term.
01:09:24
Speaker
Yeah. What about you, Milken? I have a ah weird answer to that. I think...
01:09:31
Speaker
we're on the precipice and I, I hesitate to say this because so often people have said similar things and they've been wrong, but I think we're on the precipice of a, a fundamental change in how we think about the LMS. And I think AI is going to drive that.
01:09:46
Speaker
And we kind of also need to do it because of the cost pressures, because the cost is just not sustainable. Um, and you know, one of the leadership or one of the companies said to me, it's so frustrating, you know,
01:10:01
Speaker
People are prepared to pay $20 a month for OpenAI for for a license, but they balk at paying $15 for the LMS, which they use for. That's $20 a month versus $15 a year. Yes, yes. That was his point, yeah.
01:10:16
Speaker
um and And it's frustrating, and you know especially as people are wanting these changes. And the products have changed dramatically over the last 25 years or 30 years. So I think we're at that point where things are going to really shift.
01:10:30
Speaker
It's going to be interesting comparing the shift in higher ed with the shift in K12, because I see the sort of rise there of Google particularly um being an interesting development, but it's going to be a different shift, I think.
01:10:45
Speaker
Yeah. yeah And i think this might get to, by the way, on the precipice point, and this is a teaser, it's going to be coming out fairly soon, but Morgan knows i'm we're working with a guest author um who's putting out a post that we're going to be publishing, essentially saying the LMS market is 30 years old, it's if you view it as starting with the IMS.
01:11:07
Speaker
um group defining LMS stuff, which quickly led to Blackboard, to WebCT, to, you know, these other web-based LMSs. So we're at the 30-year mark, but the products haven't changed.
01:11:21
Speaker
But then Morgan's argument, which I agree with, is we're on the precipice of a big change that we really haven't seen um It's certainly in the past, in the first 30 years of the market. So i I agree with that usage of precipice. I'm not sure you do. I've been trying to think of ah of ah of an analogy. A few years ago, Michael Feldstein wrote about, um you know, canvases entering their awkward teenage years. And I've been trying to think of the LMS as entering its 30s. You know, it's it's having an identity crisis oh or something like that, but in a good way. But I can't think of one for the moment.
01:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. What's your view, Neil? Yeah, I mean, I i agree in that um AI is going to fundamentally change some of the features that we've kind of ah become established in the um LMS side of things.
01:12:16
Speaker
um I think the thing that I'm always interested in and the tension in my head is always that juxtaposition between technology moving forward and products being developed and actually what's happening on the ground and the extent to which higher education can sometimes be sort of sealed off from um what what what's happening. And I think, you know, that doesn't... um necessarily change some of the things that that I've said, but I think it always makes me reflect in terms of the impact of some of these things and where companies invest. I think i think it's just going to be super interesting to see in the next five years
01:12:57
Speaker
I think we'll have got to a stage where um some of the there'll be maybe a consolidation of of tools and approaches that maybe will have a bit of a clearer picture on the ways in which AI has has changed and is's going to continue is changing the LMS product and what's going to fall by the wayside.
01:13:19
Speaker
i mean, I think another another element of it, is and I know we're going to get onto this talk talk in the future, is the extent to which other... technologies and vendors and ai companies are going to influence things so um i think yeah i think it's it's a really it has all the kind of components of a really interesting time in general terms because you've got the kind of ai stuff playing out is still not being figured out you've got companies making bets think the infrastructure bet is super interesting you've got all the uncertainty around black
01:13:52
Speaker
Blackboard. And that doesn't just and relate to um their product, but it also relates to the wider market and the impacts it might have on, you know, you mentioned around Instructure.
01:14:04
Speaker
and And I know other companies have mentioned to me, you know, in the past few years, a lot about Anthology and Blackboard's financial health. So I know that's kind of on their agenda. So I think it's, yeah, for ah for a market that can sometimes be a bit static i think it's a super interesting time um lots of stuff to work out lots of stuff to cut lots of bets to see how they how they go a one big question mark over a company that she could impact um the rest of the market quite significantly so yeah watch the space
01:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, so it's an exciting market, but at least, but maybe not in market share perspective, at least in the short term. But I do think it's exciting, a lot of changes. We'll have to hear from Morgan, from Edinburgh, from Moodle Moot Global, um what you hear there.
01:14:53
Speaker
um But yeah, no, this has been a great conversation. I really think there's going to be a lot of coverage we'll need to do this fall, particularly on these big bets. and exploring that user behavior topic that you're bringing up.
01:15:08
Speaker
Is that, you know, what's really going to change on user behavior? And does it change whose behavior is going to drive the future of the market as well? That's that's part of the argument I think I'll probably make.
01:15:21
Speaker
But it's been great seeing you guys. um So we're going to be closing out season two soon for the podcast and restarting it in the fall. um But I thank all of our listeners and viewers