ISTE 2026: Supporting teaching and learning with connected AI tools

At ISTE 2026, two structural claims dominated the AI announcements from Google and Microsoft: 87% of educators and education leaders, and 79% of students, agree that knowing how to use AI effectively and responsibly is important for students' futures, and both vendors are now organizing their product roadmaps around teacher mediation rather than student-direct AI access. The convergence reframes AI as a scaffolding layer inside existing teacher workflows, not a replacement tutor. Each announcement — Gemini-based Classroom tools, Microsoft 365 Education AI experiences, Samsung's customized education hardware — reduces to the same instructional mechanic: constrain who controls the feedback loop.

From "AI as answer engine" to "AI as supervised scaffold"

Microsoft's framing was explicit. The company is approaching AI in education "rather than just an 'answer engine' doing the work for them," in the words of Matt Jubelirer, General Manager of Education Marketing. Its third annual AI in Education Report documents the readiness gap driving that design choice, and the response is the AI Literacy for Educators credential pathway — co-created with ISTE + ASCD and grounded in the European Commission's and OECD's AI Literacy Framework. New AI-powered teaching experiences, available at no-additional cost ahead of ISTELive 26 inside Microsoft 365 Education and connected LMS platforms, are described as intended to keep students at the center of the learning process, with privacy protections built into each experience rather than enforced at the policy layer.

Google's announcement followed the same scaffolding logic across three distinct surfaces. Study notebooks in Gemini generate adaptive lessons and quizzes that recalibrate as the student progresses, currently live for personal Google Accounts with school-issued rollout to follow. A new Classroom app inside Gemini draws on the teacher's actual class context for routine teaching tasks, while Guided Learning tools on Chromebooks reduce digital distraction during assignments. A partnership with The Princeton Review will offer no-cost practice ACT and GRE tests within the same ecosystem. Funding flows are equally specific: the Google Educator Series will provide AI training for every educator in the U.S., grants to aiEDU target AI readiness strategies in Title 1 districts, and separate funding to ISTE+ASCD supports research on how AI can be used for student assessments.

Where the platforms diverge on instructional control

The two vendors differ on a single design lever that materially affects cognitive retention: who owns the feedback loop. Microsoft's integration keeps AI activity inside the teacher's existing gradebook and assignment flow within Microsoft 365 Education, minimizing app-switching extraneous load. Google's Guided Learning approach constrains the student's interaction surface on Chromebook assignments, trading generative freedom for reduced distraction during independent practice. Samsung's ISTE presence, per a headline snippet only, signals customized educational hardware solutions without disclosed pedagogical mechanics — limiting meaningful analysis until detailed specifications emerge.

Practical signals for adoption decisions

For educators evaluating these tools, three concrete checks apply. First, verify assessment integration: Google's commitment to give "clear insights into what students actually understand," paired with its ISTE+ASCD research funding, indicates the vendor recognizes that retention signals — not completion metrics — will define classroom ROI; Microsoft's learning-science framing serves the same objective. Second, evaluate credential portability: Microsoft's AI Literacy pathway, co-built with ISTE+ASCD and aligned with the European Commission and OECD frameworks, carries institutional portability across borders; Google's Educator Series currently lacks a comparable external accreditation tie. Third, trial the scaffolding boundaries before procurement, since tools defaulting to student-directed generation will produce different retention outcomes than those enforcing teacher-mediated prompts. The 2026 ISTE cycle marks the moment education-AI products began competing on pedagogical structure rather than feature surface — the relevant comparison is no longer which platform does more, but which one constrains its own AI most precisely.