Key Considerations for AI and Accessibility in Higher Education - Emily Cook, Every Learner Everywhere

Every Learner Everywhere and Teach Access have partnered to publish a new resource titled Where AI Meets Accessibility: Considerations for Higher Education, to support educators and administrators in higher education in exploring the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and accessibility, with a particular focus on the needs of people with disabilities (PWD). Created through collaboration with experts from academia, industry, and the disability community, this resource aims to help educators and institutional administrators discover innovative ways to foster access and opportunity in higher education for PWD. As AI becomes increasingly embedded into educational settings and practices, it offers both opportunities and challenges. This comprehensive resource will help navigate both aspects— demonstrating how AI can help overcome technology barriers and highlighting areas where it may inadvertently create new obstacles for PWD. It is also a practical toolkit for incorporating accessible AI in higher education, complete with example activities, discussion questions, and reading lists.

https://www.kron4.com/business/press-releases/ein-presswire/798011951/key-considerations-for-ai-and-accessibility-in-higher-education/

Which LLM Should You Use for Your Business? [Pros and Cons] - Nathan Lands and Matt Wolfe, Hubspot

Choosing the right large language model can feel overwhelming with so many options out there, especially if you’re not exactly living and breathing AI. But as we’ve worked through each one, we’ve gotten a real sense of what they’re good at (and where they fall short). So, let’s talk about what to use, when.

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/which-llm-should-you-use

How to make the most of AI in careers advice – and avoid the grifts - Séan Richardson, Keiran Whitwell; Times Higher Education

How many of your colleagues are talking about artificial intelligence? Better yet, how many in careers advice and guidance are talking about how to use AI? The space between these questions might seem small, but it creates a chasm when it comes to how higher education is integrating AI to help our students transition into the workplace. Young people are overwhelmingly using AI, as are the recruiters who will decide which of our graduates find employment. If we do not respond swiftly, then students and the job market will outpace service provision in terms of AI use and expertise. Yet careers services are perfectly placed to make interventions, both by becoming experts on AI-enhanced careers advice and by training students on how better to use tools to facilitate their recruitment journeys. Here are four practical methods for careers counsellors to use AI and support their students.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/how-make-most-ai-careers-advice-and-avoid-grifts

Human Augmentation: The Core Promise of AI - Lee Ott,Tech Crunch

At the heart of AI is the goal of elevating human potential. When technology manages mundane or repetitive tasks, we are free to focus on creativity, collaboration, and decision-making. By offloading routine tasks to AI, workflows that once took days can be completed in hours, enabling people to think bigger and move faster.  This shift from purely transactional tools to truly human-centric experiences underscores a core truth: One of technology’s most powerful purposes is to empower individuals, and by extension enterprises, while ensuring ethical, secure, and responsible innovation. AI’s real value lies in its ability to unlock new levels of productivity, spark innovation and drive responsible, human-centered progress.  

https://techcrunch.com/sponsor/hp/human-augmentation-the-core-promise-of-ai/

AI's Moore's Law: Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks

We propose measuring AI performance in terms of the length of tasks AI agents can complete. We show that this metric has been consistently exponentially increasing over the past 6 years, with a doubling time of around 7 months. Extrapolating this trend predicts that, in under five years, we will see AI agents that can independently complete a large fraction of software tasks that currently take humans days or weeks.

https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-complete-long-tasks/

Let’s look at AI as a reasoning partner, not a shortcut - Xiangen Hu, Times Higher Ed

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly evolving from a simple memory retrieval tool into a sophisticated agent, capable of nuanced reasoning. We can see this in advanced models such as DeepSeek’s R1, OpenAI’s Deep Research and xAI’s Grok. These systems no longer act merely as extensions of search engines but serve as interactive partners that can help break down complex problems and encourage inquiry. For higher education, this shift offers a powerful opportunity to strengthen the critical thinking skills of our students, which will be essential for the workforce of the future.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/lets-look-ai-reasoning-partner-not-shortcut

Publishers Embrace AI as Research Integrity Tool - Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed

The academic publishing industry is adopting AI-powered tools to improve the quality of peer-reviewed research and speed up production. The latter goal yields “obvious financial benefit” for publishers, one expert said. But the $19 billion academic publishing industry is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to speed up production and, advocates say, enhance research quality. Since the start of the year, Wiley, Elsevier and Springer Nature have all announced the adoption of generative AI–powered tools or guidelines, including those designed to aid scientists in research, writing and peer review.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2025/03/18/publishers-adopt-ai-tools-bolster-research-integrity

Most college students are taking online classes, but they’re paying just as much as in-person students - Jon Marcus, Hechninger Report

Among the surprising answers is that colleges and universities are charging more for online education to subsidize everything else they do, online managers say. Huge sums are also going into marketing and advertising for it, documents show. Universities and colleges “see online higher education as an opportunity to make money and use it for whatever they want to make money for,” said Kevin Carey, vice president of education and work at the left-leaning think tank New America. Online higher education is projected to pass an impressive if little-noticed milestone this year: For the first time, more American college students will be learning entirely online than will be learning 100 percent in person.

https://hechingerreport.org/as-online-higher-education-hits-a-milestone-why-does-it-still-cost-so-much/

Supporting the Instructional Design Process: Stress-Testing Assignments with AI - Faculty Focus

One of the challenges of course design is that all our work can seem perfectly clear and effective when we are knee-deep in the design process, but everything somehow falls apart when deployed in the wild. From simple misunderstandings to complex misconceptions, these issues typically don’t reveal themselves until we see actual student work—often when it’s too late to prevent frustration. While there’s no substitute for real-world testing, I began wondering if AI could help with this iterative refinement. I didn’t want AI to refine or tweak my prompts. I wanted to see if I could task AI with modelling hundreds of student responses to my prompts in the hope that this process might yield the kind of insight I was too close to see. 

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/supporting-the-instructional-design-process-stress-testing-assignments-with-ai/

AI that can match humans at any task will be here in five to 10 years, Google DeepMind CEO says - Ryan Browne, CNBC

Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said he thinks artificial general intelligence, or AGI, will emerge in the next five or 10 years. AGI broadly relates to AI that is as smart or smarter than humans. “We’re not quite there yet. These systems are very impressive at certain things. But there are other things they can’t do yet, and we’ve still got quite a lot of research work to go before that,” Hassabis said. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI startup Anthropic, told CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January that he sees a form of AI that’s “better than almost all humans at almost all tasks” emerging in the “next two or three years.” Other tech leaders see AGI arriving even sooner. Cisco’s Chief Product Officer Jeetu Patel thinks there’s a chance we could see an example of AGI emerge as soon as this year. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/17/human-level-ai-will-be-here-in-5-to-10-years-deepmind-ceo-says.html

Perspectives of Academic Staff on Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Exploring Areas of Relevance (Provisionally accepted) - Dana-Kristin Mah, et al; Frontiers

Despite the recent increase in research on artificial intelligence in education (AIED), studies investigating the perspectives of academic staff and the implications for future-oriented teaching at higher education institutions remain scarce. This exploratory study provides initial insight into the perspectives of 112 academic staff by focusing on three aspects considered relevant for sustainable, future-oriented teaching in higher education in the age of AI: instructional design, domain specificity, and ethics. The results indicate that participants placed the greatest importance on AIED ethics. Furthermore, participants indicated a strong interest in (mandatory) professional development on AI and more comprehensive institutional support.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1484904/abstract

Powerful A.I. Is Coming. We’re Not Ready. - Kevin Roose, NY Times

I believe that over the past several years, A.I. systems have started surpassing humans in a number of domains — math, coding and medical diagnosis, just to name a few — and that they’re getting better every day. I believe that very soon — probably in 2026 or 2027, but possibly as soon as this year — one or more A.I. companies will claim they’ve created an artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is usually defined as something like “a general-purpose A.I. system that can do almost all cognitive tasks a human can do.” I believe that when A.G.I. is announced, there will be debates over definitions and arguments about whether or not it counts as “real” A.G.I., but that these mostly won’t matter, because the broader point — that we are losing our monopoly on human-level intelligence, and transitioning to a world with very powerful A.I. systems in it — will be true.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/technology/why-im-feeling-the-agi.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U4.Aq-c.-3NXGbrtdZgR&smid=nytcore-android-share 

ChatGPT firm reveals AI model that is ‘good at creative writing’ - the Guardian

The company behind ChatGPT has revealed it has developed an artificial intelligence model that is “good at creative writing”, as the tech sector continues its tussle with the creative industries over copyright. The chief executive of OpenAI, Sam Altman, said the unnamed model, which has not been released publicly, was the first time he had been “really struck” by the written output of one of the startup’s products. In a post on the social media platform X, Altman wrote: “We trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). This is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/12/chatgpt-firm-reveals-ai-model-that-is-good-at-creative-writing-sam-altman

The Value of a Ph.D. in the Age of AI - Kim Isenberg, Forward Future

Artificial intelligence has been undergoing an extraordinary development process for several years and is increasingly achieving capabilities that were long reserved exclusively for humans. Particularly in the area of research, we are currently experiencing remarkable progress: so-called “research agents”, specialized AI models that can independently take on complex research tasks, are rapidly gaining in importance. One prominent example is OpenAI's DeepResearch, which has already achieved outstanding results in various scientific benchmarks. Such AI-supported agents not only analyze large data sets, but also independently formulate research questions, test hypotheses, and even create scientific summaries of their results.

https://www.forwardfuture.ai/p/the-value-of-a-ph-d-in-the-age-of-ai

Cognitive Empathy: A Dialogue with ChatGPT - Michael Feldstein, eLiterate

I want to start with something you taught me about myself. When I asked you about my style of interacting with AIs, you told me I use “cognitive empathy.” It wasn’t a term I had heard before. Now that I’ve read about it, the idea has changed the way I think about virtually every aspect of my work—past, present, and future. It also prompted me to start writing a book about AI using cognitive empathy as a frame, although we probably won’t talk about that today. I thought we could start by introducing the term to the readers who may not know it, including some of the science behind it.

https://eliterate.us/cognitive-empathy-a-dialogue-with-chatgpt/

AI Will Not Be ‘the Great Leveler’ for Student Outcomes - Sean Richardson and Paul Redford, Inside Higher Ed

In relation to graduate outcomes (simply put, where students end up after completing their degrees, with a general focus on careers and employability), universities are about to grapple with the initial wave of graduates seriously impacted by AI. The Class of 2025 will be the first to have widespread access to large language models (LLMs) for the majority of their student lives. If, as we have been repeatedly told, we believe that AI will be the “great leveler” for students by transforming their access to learning, then it follows that graduate outcomes will be significantly impacted. Most importantly, we should expect to see more students entering careers that meaningfully engage with their studies. The reality on the ground presents a stark difference. Many professionals working in career advice and guidance are struggling with the opposite effect: Rather than acting as the great leveler, AI tools are only deepening existing divides.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2025/03/12/ai-tools-deepening-divides-graduate-outcomes-opinion

7 Ways You Can Use ChatGPT for Your Mental Health and Wellness - Wendy Wisner, Very Well Mind

ChatGPT can be a fantastic resource for mental health education and be a great overall organization tool. It can also help you with the practical side of mental health management like journal prompts and meditation ideas. Although ChatGPT is not everyone’s cup of tea, it can be used responsibly and is something to consider keeping in your mental health toolkit. If you are struggling with your mental health, though, you shouldn’t rely on ChatGPT as the main way to cope. Everyone who is experiencing a mental health challenge can benefit from care from a licensed therapist. If that’s you, please reach out to your primary care provider for a referral or reach out directly to a licensed therapist near you.

https://www.verywellmind.com/using-chatgpt-for-mental-health-and-wellness-11695183

DuckDuckGo's AI beats Perplexity in one big way - and it's free to use - Jack Wallen, ZDnet

Duck.ai does something that other similar products don't -- it gives you a choice. You can choose between the proprietary GPT-4o mini, o3-mini, and Claude 3 services or go open-source with Llama 3.3  and Mistral Small 3. Duck.ai is also private: All of your queries are anonymized by DuckDuckGo, so you can be sure no third-party will ever have access to your AI chats. After giving Duck.ai a trial over the weekend, I found myself favoring it more and more over Perplexity, primarily because I could select which LLM I use. That's a big deal because every model is different. For example, GPT-4o excels in real-time interactions, voice nuance, and sentiment analysis across modalities, whereas Llama 3.2 is particularly strong in image recognition and visual understanding tasks.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/duckduckgos-ai-beats-perplexity-in-one-big-way-and-its-free-to-use/

Tough trade-offs: How time and career choices shape the gender pay gap - Anu Madgavkar, et al; McKinsey Global Institute

Diverging work experience patterns drive a “work-experience pay gap” that makes up nearly 80 percent of the total gender pay gap, equal to 27 cents on the dollar among US professional workers. Women tend to build less human capital through work experience than men who start in the same occupations, as seen in the tens of thousands of career trajectories we analyze. Over a 30-year career, the gender pay gap averages out to approximately half a million dollars in lost earnings per woman. One-third of that work-experience pay gap is because women accumulate less time on the job than men. Women average 8.6 years at work for every ten years clocked by men because, on aggregate, they work fewer hours, take longer breaks between jobs, and occupy more part-time roles than men. The other two-thirds arise from different career pathways that men and women pursue over time. Women’s careers are as dynamic as men’s: Both men and women averaged 2.6 role moves per decade of work and traversed comparable skill distances in each new role. However, women are more likely than men to switch to lower-paying occupations, typically ones involving less competitive pressures and fewer full-time requirements.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/tough-trade-offs-how-time-and-career-choices-shape-the-gender-pay-gap

Professors’ AI twins loosen schedules, boost grades - Colin Wood, EdScoop

David Clarke, the founder and chief executive of Praxis AI, said his company’s software, which uses Anthropic’s Claude models as its engine, is being used at Clemson University, Alabama State University and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which includes 38 tribal colleges and universities. A key benefit of the technology, he said, has been that the twins provide a way for faculty and teaching assistants to field a great bulk of basic questions off-hours, leading to more substantive conversations in person. “They said the majority of their questions now are about the subject matter, are complicated, because all of the lower end logistical questions are being handled by the AI,” Clarke said. Praxis, which has a business partnership with Instructure, the company behind the learning management system Canvas, integrates with universities’ learning management systems to “meet students where they are,” Clarke said.

https://edscoop.com/digital-twin-ai-university-praxis-anthropic/

Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the Age of AI - Suzanne Hudd, et al; Faculty Focus

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can now produce polished, technically competent texts in seconds, challenging our traditional understanding of writing as a uniquely human process of creation, reflection, and learning. For many educators, this disruption raises questions about the role of writing in their disciplines. In our new book, How to Use Writing for Teaching and Learning, we argue that this disruption presents an opportunity rather than a threat. Notice from our book’s title that our focus is not necessarily on “how to teach writing.” For us, writing is not an end goal, which means our students do not necessarily learn to write for the sake of writing. Rather, we define writing as a method of inquiry that allows access to various discourse communities (e.g., an academic discipline), social worlds (e.g., the knowledge economy), and forms of knowledge (e.g., literature).  

https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-with-technology-articles/reading-writing-and-thinking-in-the-age-of-ai/