The education company working with the Los Angeles Unified School District on a major artificial intelligence project is now facing uncertainty — a development that opens questions about the future of the project.
In a statement posted to its website, the education company AllHere said its board furloughed the majority of its employees on June 14, citing its “current financial position.”
LAUSD was also made aware of a change in leadership and CEO, according to a district spokesperson.
AllHere, a Harvard Innovation Lab venture, has been working with the major California district through a public-private partnership to create a chatbot known as “Ed,” an AI assistant for students, families and educators.
The Boston-based company signed a $6 million contract to work with LAUSD over five years.
News of the furloughs comes about three months after LAUSD announced the launch of the AI-powered “learning acceleration platform.”
We will ensure that whichever entity acquires AllHere will continue to provide this first-of-its-kind resource to our students and families.
Despite the uncertainty, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has continued to tout the new chatbot — highlighting it earlier this week during a panel held during the annual International Society for Technology in Education conference, a massive ed-tech show, in Denver.
He described his goals for the technology, and how it aims to help students throughout the day, with tasks including everything from letting them know when the bus is getting close to pick them up to going over what will be covered in the first period of class.
Ed also has the capability to nudge administrators to check on a student who is missing and send information to parents in their native language, and at their reading level, he said.
The tool belongs to LAUSD, the district said in a statement emailed to EdWeek Market Brief. And the district is aware that “several educational technology companies” are interested in acquiring AllHere.
The district is “closely involved and monitoring” any potential acquisition, a spokesperson said.
“The level of interest in Ed showcases Ed’s promise, potential and innovation,” the district said in an email. “The educational technology field is a dynamic space where acquisitions are not uncommon. We will ensure that whichever entity acquires AllHere will continue to provide this first-of-its-kind resource to our students and families.”
News like this is “disappointing,” said Emily Reid, CEO of AI4ALL, in an email, although she believes the industry will continue to see companies in the AI space “struggle to gain a footing” and become profitable.
When a situation like the one with AllHere happens, it has the greatest impact on students who miss out on a cutting edge technology and vendor employees who lose their jobs, she pointed out.
“AI is still very much in its infancy and as we navigate how to best use it, there are going to be missteps and failures,” Reid said. “We need to both be optimistic about the opportunities AI provides and cautious about the hype.”
The rollout of the Ed tool, and the partnership between LAUSD and AllHere, is being closely watched by educators and the K-12 marketplace as one of the first major experiments with AI in a public district.
As such, it has already offered some early insight into both practical ways districts can use AI to improve classroom instruction and operations, and potential downsides or hurdles systems will need to navigate.
In May, the founder and CEO of AllHere, Joanna Smith-Griffin, told EdWeek Market Brief that the deal with LAUSD generated a wave on interest in Ed, saying school systems from more than 21 different countries had reached out to ask how they could use the tool as well.
She said a district in New Jersey had also signed a deal to use Ed, though she didn’t say which one.
“It’s been crazy in the best way,” she said at the time.
In an in-depth Q&A with EdWeek Market Brief in April, Smith-Griffin described what it took to make the partnership with LAUSD work. She spoke about working with parents and staff members to allow them to inform the development of the tool.
The company’s “About us” webpage, which included Smith-Griffin’s professional biography, has been removed.
The increasing power of generative AI has created a scramble in the education industry, as companies race to try to determine what the technology can bring to their products — and how school districts will respond to it.
The proliferation of smaller AI-focused education products has also been a factor in a recent wave of companies going under or getting snapped up by larger organizations, analysts and other observers have said.
“There are a thousand flowers trying to bloom here,” Kristen DiCerbo, Khan Academy’s chief learning officer, told EdWeek Market Brief recently. “If I had a crystal ball, I would say there [are] going to be a lot of consolidation and acquisitions coming.”
