It is interesting how Stanford's annual AI report "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030" argues that Artificial Intelligence has "enabled instructors...to multiply the size of their classrooms by a few orders of magnitude". The author rationalizes this argument as such: Artificial Intelligence tools such as "personalized tutoring" and "NLP assessment tools", which are widely available on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and other models of online education, have simplified the process of tutoring and grading, therefore enabling them to teach more students than they would have without the AI tools. While it is valid to argue that Artificial Intelligence has simplified a lot of the administrative tasks, it is insufficient to claim that it is the most important factor for the extended use case of online teaching. A more valid claim should have been the advancement in web technology (such as faster streaming services) has promoted the prospering of virtual learning environments, and the use of AI further enhances some of the subcomponents of such virtual environments. The difference between the argument Stanford has provided and the one myself has provided is that the former places emphasis on AI while the latter emphasizes the importance of web technology. 

This point of view can be illustrated through the AI project I have been working on for a candy company named "Mars". Mars has over 10,000 users globally, and the number frustration on the services provided by the internal IT has to do with the use of SharePoint, which has a steep learning curve which the majority of the business users could not master. To resolve this challenge, my team, the Digital Workplace Team, managed to set up a Yammer support channel, on which business users can ask away any struggles they may encounter using SharePoint, and an expert from the community will answer their questions shortly (Yammer is a social network similar to Facebook except that it is for company internal use). Shortly after the deployment of this Yammer community, we discovered that a lot of questions like setting up a SharePoint site were asked over and over again, and, therefore, we thought some kind of digital assistants could help automate some of these Q&As. As of now, the digital assistants have proven their value by (a) being able to provide business users with solutions in a timely fashion and (b) reducing the time analysts needed to perform low-value operations such as answering frequently-encountered how-to questions. 

In this example, Yammer, analogous to the MOOCs cited in "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030", is the enabler of virtual learning environment for the SharePoint technology. Without this enterprise social platform, the learning environment wouldn't have existed. The digital assistant on the platform, which is an example use case of Artificial Intelligence, is simply an addition that enhances the learning environment. It is valid to say that there is evidence AI helps enable the learning environment, but it is insufficient to claim that it is the driving force for this educational digital transformation.  
 
