When ChatGPT launched in November 2022, a prevailing sentiment in education was alarm and despair. Students would cheat. Essays are over. What’s the point of homework, or tests?

The genie was out of the bottle. Yet we believed that, with proper teacher guidance, AI could be channeled to help learners understand how to wield a new, powerful tool for a new world.

GPTZero’s Edward Tian and Alex Cui believed this, too. Even as they built the industry’s leading AI detector, they understood that detection should not be a punitive tripwire, but rather a common ground for educators and students to discuss and navigate AI together, to reinforce the value of human originality and authentic thinking.

Now used by more than 19 million users, including those in schools and universities across the world, GPTZero will be joining Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly.

We are incredibly privileged to have been a part of their journey, and equally proud as they enter their next chapter. The mission doesn’t change: to preserve what’s human.

In a wide-ranging interview on The Humanist, our co-founder Jennifer Carolan retraces edtech’s arc from the “green grade books” of her teaching days to the latest AI wave reshaping it now.

Underlying every technological breakthrough is a centuries-long shift in who controls access to knowledge, which in turn has shaped how we teach, learn, and support one another.

Her homework for today’s edtech founders: “Get out of the building. Become a substitute teacher. Shadow a teacher. Sit in a classroom for three days in a row — spoiler: it’s boring and exhausting, and it isn't the teacher's fault, but the factory-like structure of it all. Learn as much as you can and develop real empathy for the people you're building for.”

Read the interview with Jennifer Carolan.

In an interview with education media watchdog Alexander Russo, our Head of Platform and former journalist Tony Wan discusses the undercurrents behind the technology backlash in schools — where it’s justified, what the media coverage misses, and how all companies and founders should prepare for a high bar of questions around ROI and efficacy.

Watch Tony’s interview on The Grade.

Congratulations to Jeremy Rogoff, Vicky Kinzig and the team at KickUp on their acquisition by Achieve Partners!

Serving more than 300,000 educators across the country, KickUp has helped boost teacher retention, reduced time on administrative PD work, and empowered countless educators to take ownership of their professional learning journey. 

Great teachers deserve great support, and we’re extremely proud of the KickUp team as they enter a new chapter in their journey to reimagine high-quality professional development for educators.

Congratulations to Jenny Duan on a most productive graduation week — getting a diploma, and closing a $11 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures.

Along with co-founder Abhinav Agarwal, Clair is building the first continuous, non-invasive hormone monitor for women. Its wristband uses 10 biosensors to read physiological signals like skin temperature, heart rate variability, and electrodermal activity, then runs those markers through AI models to infer where a woman is in her hormonal cycle. Read their Fortune coverage here.

All systems go: Cheers to Mick Hewitt, Doug Weber, and the Ednition team on their new investment and strategic partnership with The College Board. We are thrilled to continue our support as they make data interoperability seamless (and uneventful), instead of an expensive headache for edtech builders today. If you’re a founder wrestling with K-12 data infrastructure and interoperability challenges, check them out.

Does it feel like there’s more and more AI content online these days?

As of Q1 2026, the proportion of AI-generated articles published on the internet was the same as the number written by humans, based on a Graphite report using three different detectors (including GPTZero).

Thankfully, this number appears to be plateauing. One possible reason: AI-generated articles do not perform well in search and AI answer engines, as Graphite found in a separate study. Human authorship and originality still have the edge — for now.

The more capable AI becomes, the more the oldest human skills and values matter in designing what comes next: language, attention, and play. That was the takeaway from two design conferences in as many weeks — Replit’s vibecon and Figma’s Config— where we learned what it takes to make Claude sound human and help driverless Waymos make “eye contact” that earns pedestrians and passengers’ trust.

Designer Dinners and Happy Hours: Reach tagged along at both conferences. In New York, we dined with founders and design leaders from our portfolio, swapping tales about what sparks their builder instincts. In San Francisco, we hosted our first “Tiny Jam” inviting designers to showcase their AI projects, which ranged from revenue cycle management tools for hospitals to margin optimization for small restaurants and a stress visualizer built on wearables.

The 2026 Reach Conference Calendar is the best way to see all the major industry events across learning, health, and work. If you’re hosting a conference or know of one we missed, reply to the newsletter.

Brilliant

Helping learners build STEM literacy faster, and with more joy.

Marit

Building the Glassdoor for medicine.

Rosie

Reimagining care for families and caregivers.

SparkChat (aka Digipals)

Building the future of social in the age of AI.

Stellic

Powering the path to graduation.

Stepful

Empowering communities with access to healthcare careers.