Civic Education
in the AI Age
Key Players
Select an organization to learn more.
aiEDU
AI Literacy
Open AI
AI Research & Deployment
iCivics
Civic Education
aiEDU
| AI Literacy
aiEDU, or The AI Education Project, is a non-profit creating learning experiences that build AI literacy, or the “collection of skills and knowledge that a person needs to understand, use, and critically evaluate artificial intelligence” (aiEDU, n.d.). Using “research-based strategies and educational psychology frameworks,” aiEDU trains students and educators to leverage AI responsibly and impactfully (aiEDU, n.d.). aiEDU’s outreach approach focuses on equitable access to AI systems, conceptual knowledge, and skills, so that all citizens can thrive as “workers, creators, and consumers'' in the AI Age, regardless of their background (aiEDU, n.d.).
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aiEDU has unveiled impressive partnerships to expand their cause, including funders, higher education institutions, non-profits, educational agencies, and K-12 school districts. These partnerships include 80+ organizations like The Ballmer Group, Google, OpenAI, UPenn, and Akron Public Schools, which collectively serve over 1.5 million students (Business Wire, 2023). To focus on its commitment to “serve the underserved,” aiEDU has identified priority regions for curricular development, such as the State of Florida. This includes a collaboration with the Florida High Tech Corridor Council to give “disadvantaged communities…basic access to AI knowledge” (aiEDU, n.d.). Pilot programs have successfully been completed in Hillsborough and Orange Counties, showing exciting progress in investing in AI literacy education for aiEDU’s priority areas.
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Beyond partnerships, aiEDU connects with educators through Educator Newsletters, calls for surveys, and free product offerings upon signing up to their platform. They offer a free course called “Intro to AI,” a project-based fundamentals course with 10 modules, lesson plans, and student workbooks for grades 9-12. Educators can also purchase other projects on their site, from role-playing as a public relations expert for the White House and release a “Deepfake PSA,” to developing a vision board to picture the future of healthcare innovation with AI. aiEDU offers “AI Snapshots” featuring 180, five minute pre-content warm ups for educators to integrate AI in pre-planned lessons. aiEDU also reaches educators through professional development opportunities in their monthly webinar series. These cover topics like AI ethics, societal impacts, fundamentals, and pedagogy.
aiEDU is leading the emerging field of AI Literacy in education. Through close collaboration with educators, strategic partnerships, and novel product offerings, this non-profit is effectively growing their mission of ensuring equitable access to AI, preparing students for the future of education, work, and the world.
| AI Research & Deployment
Open AI
Many know OpenAI for its infamous ChatGPT, a chatbot that has revolutionized public access to AI systems. However, OpenAI is a research and deployment company with several other product offerings and a mission to “ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity” (OpenAI, n.d.). The company boasts a significant contribution to AI deployment, with 14.6% market share and a forecasted revenue of $3.4 billion in 2024 (6Sense, 2024; Forbes, 2024). In the AI chatbot market, OpenAI holds 68% of site visits, with 2.8 billion site visits in just August 2023; they dominate their three trailing competitors, including Bard, CharacterAI, and Perplexity, who together hold 18.69% of site visits within the chatbot market (Westfall, 2023). OpenAI’s customer base includes individuals, teams, and enterprises, though their recent acquisitions of Multi and Rockset, both business tools, suggests that they seek to expand their enterprise reach (Crunchbase, 2024).
OpenAI supports DALLE, their text-to-image generation model, and GPT-Builder, their custom chatbot building tool, in addition to ChatGPT. They recently released GPT-4 and DALLE-3, upgraded versions of these models with more advanced reasoning and data sourcing at cost (OpenAI, 2024). OpenAI is also investing in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research. These models, unlike genAI, can perform “human-like intelligence…self-teach…and perform tasks that [they are] not necessarily trained [to do]” (Amazon Web Services, n.d.). While this technology is theoretical as of now, OpenAI claims that their investment “could…elevate humanity by…aiding in the discovery of knowledge” (OpenAI, 2023; Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, 2023).
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In educational settings, OpenAI focuses its attention in higher education. A tool called ChatGPT Edu was released in 2024 to help higher education partners responsibly deploy AI for campus operations and research (OpenAI, 2024). OpenAI has, however, released educational materials to assist K-12 teachers who use their chatbot tools in their “Teaching with AI” resource page. These materials include use cases for AI, example prompts, and an “FAQ” page for educators (OpenAI, 2023).
Clearly, AI is here to stay, and OpenAI is investing in its possibilities. Through research initiatives, growing enterprise size, and product offerings, OpenAI is leading the future of the AI Age. Frequent consulting with non-profits, research institutions, government agencies, and community leaders can help to mitigate risks associated with this growth, especially as AI continues to impact education.
iCivics
| Civic Education
iCivics is a non-profit leader in civic education development, outreach, and lobbying. Their mission is to “inspire life-long civic engagement by providing high quality and engaging civics resources to teachers and students” (iCivics, n.d.). Through their product offerings like free K-12 civics resources and games, policy advocacy initiatives, and community organizing, they reached over 9 million students and 145,000 teachers on their platform in 2023 (iCivics, 2023).
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Because iCivics is a non-profit, they rely on donations and grants to provide accessible civic learning experiences. In 2023, they generated over 10 million dollars in revenue, with support from organizations like the U.S. Department of Defense, Unity Technologies, Amazon Web Services, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (iCivics, n.d.). They not only use these funds for operational costs, but also to lobby for increased federal grants to civic education classrooms: these initiatives are housed in their child organization, the CivXNow project (CivXNow, 2024).
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CivXNow is a coalition of more than 335 organizations “focused on our nation’s in and out-of-school civic education” (CivXNow, n.d.). Along with policy advocacy, CivXNow publishes research-based reports on the state of civic education and digital media. One recent example is their report on AI, titled “Uncharted Waters: Education, Democracy, and Social Cohesion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.” The report described “how [educators] can best use and not abuse [AI’s] use to build, equip, and sustain a civil society”; this includes content like evidence-based civic knowledge and skills, how AI will impact their retention, and recommendations to support learning in the AI Age (CivXNow, 2024). Zachary Coté, a contributing author and Executive Director of the non-profit Thinking Nation, emphasized in an interview that educators should remain “unabashedly social studies,” dedicated to teaching “good civics” (Coté, 2024). He believes that if we focus on helping students understand what it means to be critical, engaged, and participatory citizens, they will be better equipped to use AI, or any tool, responsibly (2024). Coté and his colleagues continue to discover how AI will impact civic education through CivXNow initiatives.
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iCivics' commitment to civic education highlights its crucial role in sustaining a healthy democracy. The organization effectively supports students, educators, and citizens by providing free K-12 learning experiences in classrooms and engaging in research and policy advocacy outside the classroom. This dual approach has proven impactful in fostering informed and active participation in democratic processes, especially in the AI Age.