AI takes over the classroom

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

Arizona just approved an education experiment that would have seemed like sci-fi a few years ago — replacing human teachers with AI in classrooms.

With promises of doubled efficiency and personalized learning, could this controversial experiment become tomorrow's standard? Let's get into it...

In today’s AI rundown:

• AI teachers make classroom debut in Arizona

• Qwen unveils powerful open-source visual reasoning AI

• Transform your interior design in seconds with AI

• ARMOR brings new perception system to humanoid robots

• 5 new AI tools & 5 new AI jobs

• More AI & tech news

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

AI & EDUCATION

🎓 AI teachers make classroom debut in Arizona

The Rundown: Arizona just approved a revolutionary but controversial charter school program where AI, not human teachers, will deliver core academic instruction to students in grades 4-8 during a two-hour school day.

The details:

• Students will spend just two hours daily on AI-guided, personalized academic lessons using platforms like IXL and Khan Academy.

• The school will operate fully online, with the AI able to adapt in real-time to each student's performance and customize difficulty and presentation style.

• The rest of the day will focus on life skills workshops led by human mentors, covering topics like financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

• A program pilot claimed students learned twice as much in half the time, allowing them to focus more on important life skills.

Why it matters: While the program is sure to ruffle feathers, it’s likely an early adopter of what will be the norm in the near future. AI’s ability to hyper-personalize learning to each student at scale is unmatchable by the strained school systems and will likely raise major questions about the future of education depending on its success or failure.

TOGETHER WITH TURING

📘 The ROI playbook for LLM success

The Rundown: Turing’s white paper reveals actionable insights on how companies can maximize the ROI of their LLM investments by addressing key challenges in cost, efficiency, and impact.

With this guide, you’ll learn how to:

• Identify cost-saving opportunities in LLM deployment

• Improve model performance and align with business goals

• Unlock measurable value from your AI investments

Ready to move forward?

Download the white paper now.

ALIBABA

🧠 Qwen unveils powerful open-source visual reasoning AI

The Rundown: Alibaba's Qwen team introduced QVQ-72B-Preview, an experimental open-source AI model that combines step-by-step analytical capabilities with visual reasoning to solve complex problems in mathematics, physics, and science.

The details:

• QVQ excels at step-by-step reasoning through complex visual problems, particularly in mathematics and physics.

• The model scored a 70.3 on the MMMU benchmark, approaching performance levels of leading closed-source competitors like Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

• Built upon Qwen's existing VL model, QVQ also demonstrates enhanced capabilities in analyzing images and drawing sophisticated conclusions.

• Qwen said QVQ is a step towards ‘omni’ and ‘smart’ models that can integrate multiple modalities and tackle increasingly complex scientific challenges.

Why it matters: While AI leaders have kept their most capable visual reasoning models behind closed doors, Qwen's open sourcing of QVQ could push the space forward. As systems improve at combining visual and analytical thinking, the emergence of more sophisticated problem-solving AI will only continue to accelerate.

AI TRAINING

🏠 Transform your interior design in seconds

The Rundown: Freepik allows you to transform any room's design by reimagining entire spaces or making specific adjustments to your interior photos.

Step-by-step:

1. Access Freepik and log into your account.

2. Choose Reimagine for full room transformations or Retouch for specific changes.

3. Upload your interior photo, modify the AI-generated description for complete changes, or use the brush tool to mark specific areas.

4. Generate multiple variations and download your favorite designs.

Pro tip: Use high-quality photos and specific descriptions for best results. Rundown University paid members get a free premium Freepik subscription.

PRESENTED BY INNOVATING WITH AI

💼 Start your career as an AI Consultant

The Rundown: Innovating with AI’s new program, AI Consultancy Project, equips AI enthusiasts with all the resources to capitalize on the rapidly growing AI consulting market – which is set to 8x to $54.7B by 2032.

The program offers:

• Tools and framework to find clients and deliver top-notch services

• A 6-month roadmap to build a 6-figure AI consulting business

• Student landing their first AI client in as little as 3 days

Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.

AI RESEARCH

🦾 ARMOR brings new perception system to humanoid robots

The Rundown: Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Apple introduced ARMOR, a perception system that transforms how humanoid robots navigate their environment — dramatically reducing collisions while increasing operational speed.

The details:

• The system uses distributed depth sensors across robot arms, creating an ‘artificial skin’ for increased spatial awareness.

• ARMOR showed a 63.7% collision reduction and 78.7% navigation improvement compared to traditional cameras, with 26x faster data processing.

• The system learns from human motion data, with training on over 86 hours of realistic movements.

• The tech was successfully deployed on a Fourier GR1 humanoid robot, using 40 low-cost sensors to create comprehensive spatial awareness.

• The system can be implemented using off-the-shelf components, making it accessible for wider robotics applications.

Why it matters: Systems like ARMOR allow robots to eventually work in more dynamic, unpredictable environments rather than just controlled industrial settings. We're getting closer to human-level spatial awareness in robotics — a key milestone for deploying humanoids in everyday settings.

NEW TOOLS & JOBS

Trending AI Tools

• 🧠 Neuradocs - Run your Slack and Discord channels on autopilot with AI

• 🗣️ VocAdapt - Master languages with AI-adapted authentic content from text and YouTube

• 🔎 Gensmo - Next-gen AI search that turns ideas into interactive results

• 🎬 PopShort AI - Turn your inspiration into engaging short films in minutes

• 💸 Lambda - AI-powered investment copilot that elevates investments with professional-grade analysis

New AI Job Opportunities

• 🎨 Meta - Art Director

• 💰 Databricks - Manager, Revenue Operations

• 🤝 Dataiku - Enterprise Account Executive

• 🧪 xAI - Post-training Researcher/Engineer

• 💻 Coreweave - Data Center Technician

QUICK HITS

Nvidia completed its acquisition of Israeli AI startup Run:ai for a reported $700M and announced plans to open-source the company’s hardware optimization software.

OpenAI has reportedly explored entry into the humanoid robotics market, potentially building on investments in startups Figure AI and 1x while leveraging custom chip development initiatives.

Google product lead and ex-OpenAI Logan Kilpatrick tweeted that a ‘straight shot to ASI (artificial superintelligence) is looking more probable by the month,’ saying this trend is what Ilya Sutskever ‘saw’ during his dramatic break from OpenAI.

TikTok parent company ByteDance reportedly plans to invest $7B in Nvidia AI chips in 2025, leveraging overseas data centers to circumvent U.S. export restrictions on China.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees at a strategy meeting that the company’s biggest focus in 2025 will be scaling its Gemini AI assistant for consumers, saying ‘the stakes are high’ for the new year.

THAT’S A WRAP

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, and Alvaro—aka The Rundown Team