During AAAI 2026, Ashok Goel received one of the field’s highest honors when he was named the 20th recipient of the AAAI Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award, sponsored by the Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) conference and AI Magazine.

Established in 2003, the Engelmore Award recognizes individuals who demonstrate excellence in AI scholarship, impactful applications of artificial intelligence, and extraordinary service to the AI community. The award honors the legacy of Robert S. Engelmore for his contributions to AAAI, AI Magazine, and the applied AI community.

Goel was recognized for his pioneering research in biologically inspired design, case-based reasoning, and AI-enabled virtual teaching, as well as for his extensive service to AAAI, including his tenure as Editor in Chief of AI Magazine. His work has significantly influenced how AI systems reason, learn from experience, and support human learning in real-world contexts.

As part of the honor, Goel delivered the Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture at IAAI-26 in Singapore, held January 22–25, 2026. His lecture, presented on Saturday, January 24, highlighted key ideas from his career and reflected on the evolution and future of applied artificial intelligence. A companion article documenting his contributions is forthcoming in AI Magazine.

The award ceremony took place alongside Goel’s broader participation at AAAI 2026, including his talk on AI for reskilling, upskilling, and workforce development and the submission of a related research paper on metacognitive architectures for correcting errors in LLM-based AI agents. Together, these moments marked a significant milestone in a career dedicated to advancing responsible, human-centered AI.

During AAAI 2026, Ashok Goel shared how AI can be part of the solution to workforce disruption, not just the cause.

In his talk, AI for Reskilling, Upskilling, and Workforce Development, Goel highlighted how NSF’s National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) is using responsible, human-centered AI to support adult learners at scale. From grounding AI systems in cognitive science to using in-person learning as a benchmark for online education, AI-ALOE’s work focuses on expanding access to high-quality learning for today’s evolving workforce.

A timely conversation on how AI can help people adapt, grow, and thrive in a rapidly changing economy. Watch here.

In addition to the talk, a paper co-authored by Goel was also submitted to AAAI 2026:
“A Metacognitive Architecture for Correcting LLM Errors in AI Agents” (Paper #1512), by Jisu Kim, Mahimul Islam, and Ashok Goel. The work introduces a metacognitive self-adaptation architecture that helps AI agents identify, correct, and explain errors, strengthening robustness and trustworthiness in real-world learning environments.

More than 60 attendees from institutions across the country gathered for the AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education’s annual AI-ALOE Showcase, an afternoon event highlighting advances in artificial intelligence for adult and online learning.

Hosted at the Georgia Tech Student Center, the showcase brought together researchers, educators, students and industry leaders to explore how AI is reshaping teaching, learning, and workforce development. AI-ALOE, a National Science Foundation–funded institute led by Georgia Tech and partner universities, has developed seven AI technologies used in more than 360 courses and reaching over 30,000 learners. Its flagship tool, Jill Watson, has even surpassed ChatGPT in classroom performance.

Tone Setting Opening Remarks

William Gaudelli, Dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Lifetime Learning, opened the program with inspiring remarks. Executive Director Ashok Goel followed with an overview of AI-ALOE’s mission and progress since the institute’s launch.

Rapid-Fire Research Highlights

The “5-Minute Madness” session featured concise project updates from AI-ALOE scientists and students. The rapid-fire format highlighted work across the institute’s research portfolio, including: apprentice tutors, teachable agents, social agents, intelligent modeling and simulation, interactive video learning, design guidelines for AI systems, and more.

Poster Session Draws Strong Engagement

A poster and demo session offered attendees the opportunity to engage directly with researchers. The room remained active throughout the hour as visitors circulated, asked questions, and explored demonstrations of the institute’s tools and prototypes.

Panel Explores AI’s Role in Higher Education

The afternoon concluded with a workshop-style panel on AI in higher education, moderated by Goel. Panelists included Laura Carruth, associate vice provost for teaching and learning; Richard DeMillo, Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren chair in computing; Stephen Ruffin, associate dean of academic affairs at Georgia Tech Professional Education; and Leslie Sharp, dean of libraries. The audience posed a wide range of questions about AI’s instructional potential, responsible deployment, and implications for higher education.

Across all sessions, organizers noted strong engagement and meaningful dialogue, reflecting the growing national interest in AI-enabled learning systems and the role of research institutions in shaping the field’s future.

In a recent webinar, Barbara Means detailed how a Digital Promise learning sciences team is studying how instructional practices differ in blended introductory statistics courses at broad-access two- and four-year colleges. The work focuses on how teaching changes when institutions adopt digital courseware designed to deliver full-course content, practice, and assessment.

AI and Multi-Source Data Inform Analysis

Researchers analyzed data from more than 90 classes across 28 colleges, drawing on surveys, interviews, classroom observations, and AI-enhanced audio. Generative AI tools classified instructional approaches by examining talk-time percentages and speaker-labeled transcripts, used alongside traditional quantitative and qualitative methods.

Findings Highlight Promise and Limits

The resulting classification showed clear differences in courseware use, student engagement, and the likelihood of earning a C or higher. The findings point to both the potential and current constraints of applying generative AI in large-scale educational research.

Watch the recording here.

Representatives from the U. S. National Science FoundationAI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) joined colleagues from across the NSF AI research institutes network at the Summit for AI Institutes Leadership (SAIL), held October 21–23. The three-day event highlighted cross-institute collaboration, industry partnerships, and the expanding role of artificial intelligence in education, research, and workforce development.

AI-ALOE Contributions Span Research, Practice, and Communication

AI-ALOE was prominently represented throughout the summit with several key presentations and posters. The institute’s outreach, research, and education initiatives were featured in sessions across all three days.

AI-ALOE’s Jackelyn Bjorne and Sanaz Ahmadzadeh Siyahrood opened the week with presentations on Tuesday morning. Blaine Helmick joined the Industry Collaborations: Industry Perspectives session on Wednesday afternoon, contributing insights from AI-ALOE’s partnerships with corporate and workforce training stakeholders.

On Thursday morning, Chris Dede spoke during the Leveraging AI Institute Collaboration for Advocacy panel. Additionally, Glen Smith and Rahul Dass had posters showcasing ongoing AI-ALOE research in personalized learning and scalable educational technologies.

Cross-Institute Collaboration in Focus

Hosted by the NSF AI Institutes Virtual Organization (AIVO), SAIL 2025 brought together leaders from academia, industry, and government to discuss opportunities for collaboration across the growing AI research ecosystem.

Sessions throughout the week explored topics such as interdisciplinary research, AI ethics and trustworthiness, and advancing educational programs. The AI4Ed and Ed4AI sessions provided focused opportunities for the five education focused institutes, AI-ALOE, iSAT, INVITE, Engage-AI, and AI4ExceptionalEducation, to exchange findings and discuss new directions in teaching and learning.

The U. S. National Science Foundation AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) hosted a successful Virtual Research Showcase that drew more than 120 participants from academia, industry, and education sectors. The event, held online, spotlighted cutting-edge research and applications of artificial intelligence in adult learning, online education, and workforce development.

Part of AI-ALOE’s broader initiative to serve as a national nexus for dialogue on AI-enabled reskilling and upskilling, the showcase brought together researchers across multiple partner institutions to share progress on projects advancing the future of AI-driven instruction.

The event emphasized collaboration and continued research toward scalableAI solutions for education and workforce development.

Building on the success of this event, AI-ALOE plans to organize additional showcases and discussions to foster national collaboration and accelerate innovation at the intersection of AI and education.

Find the recording, presentations, chat transcript, and audio transcript here.

Two student researchers with the U. S. National Science Foundation AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) were selected for the 2025 AIVO AI4Ed Summer Research Fellowship, funded by the NSF and Google.org. The fellowship supports graduate researchers advancing artificial intelligence innovations in education.

Georgia Institute of Technology’s Joon Kum and Georgia State University’s Lia Haddadian represented AI-ALOE among a national cohort of fellows developing AI-driven learning tools. Their projects addressed key challenges in collaborative reasoning and professional learning for educators.

Advancing Collaborative Reasoning Through AI

Kum collaborated with a multi-university team on a project designed to make AI a more natural and effective collaborator in group learning environments. Their project, “Probing Minds: Modeling Implicit Disagreement and Designing Responsive AI to Support Collaborative Reasoning,” explored how AI can better interpret subtle cues, such as hedging or indirect language, that indicate disagreement during conversation.

“Collaborative learning thrives on moments of disagreement, but such moments are often conveyed subtly,” the team noted in their presentation abstract. By training and evaluating disagreement-detection models, including large language models, the researchers explored a socially aware AI agent capable of recognizing implicit signals and prompting deeper reasoning in small group discussions.

Personalized Learning for Speech-Language Pathologists

Haddadian’s team focused on professional learning through AI driven personalization. Their project, “AI-Augmented Personalized Podcast Delivery to Advance Language-Science Competence for Speech-Language Pathologists,” aimed to strengthen the language-science knowledge of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) by using AI to personalize professional learning through podcasts..

The team designed a demo platform that delivers podcast episodes tailored to the listener’s specific questions and learning needs. Using feedback from informal focus groups with SLP students, the researchers aligned the tool’s content and delivery with adult learning science theory to maximize engagement and relevance.

Showcasing Innovation at the AIVO AI4Ed Summit

Both projects were presented at the AIVO AI4Ed Summer Summit in Chicago, where fellows shared their outcomes and prototypes with peers, mentors, and representatives from NSF and Google.org.

Through their fellowship experiences, Kum and Haddadian demonstrated AI-ALOE’s commitment to advancing research at the intersection of AI and education—designing intelligent systems that enhance collaboration, personalization, and professional learning across diverse educational settings.