Recorded live at the 2026 ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, this session featured Matthew Winters, Artificial Intelligence Education Specialist at Utah State Board of Education; Mary Beck, President at Distinctive Schools; Sari Factor, Vice Chair & Chief Strategy Officer at Imagine Learning; and Amanda Bickerstaff, CEO at AI for Education.

The speakers discussed how the rapid spread of GenAI has brought schools to an unprecedented inflection point. While districts may not have had all the answers yet, the need to act was clear. The session explored how the education system could move beyond reactive measures toward intentional planning, policy, and practice that put student needs—not technology—first.

The conversation also delved into Beyond the AI Inflection Point: Shaping the Future of Education, a new report and toolkit designed to help schools navigate this complex journey. Emerging from a strategic convening of experts and students, the project chronicled the story of “Central Schools,” a fictional district whose three possible paths to 2030 illustrated how decisions made today could lead to vastly different outcomes for students, teachers, and the community.