Serving Every Student with SchoolAI's Caleb Hicks | GSVtv Webinar

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Serving Every Student with SchoolAI's Caleb Hicks"

ASU+GSV Summit | GSVtv Webinar
Date: July 20, 2026

---

Overview

This ASU+GSV Summit episode features Caleb Hicks, CEO of SchoolAI, in conversation about leveraging artificial intelligence to deeply understand and support every student—especially the often-overlooked "middle 80%" in classrooms. Hicks shares his personal journey as a teacher-turned-entrepreneur, explains how SchoolAI is tackling the challenges of individualized educational connection, and unpacks both qualitative and quantitative impacts observed so far. The discussion also expands into the company's business growth and the collaborative energy at the ASU+GSV Summit.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge: Reaching Every Student

• Teacher Context: Caleb recalls his early teaching days with 300 students, struggling to know them all beyond attendance and grades.
  • "We ask so much of teachers… and it's really impossible to do it anywhere individualized at all." — Caleb Hicks [00:38]
• Teachers typically remember the "top" and "troubled" 20 kids but "the middle 80% are kind of this anonymous middle." — Hicks [01:05]

2. SchoolAI’s Mission: Illuminating the “In-Between”

• Purpose: SchoolAI aims to help teachers and schools "see the story in between they showed up and the grade." — Hicks [01:51]
• The tool is designed to reveal more granular, real-time insights than traditional attendance or grades.

3. How SchoolAI Works

• Teacher-Controlled AI: Allows teachers to create flexible learning activities or conduct weekly "pulse checks" with students for quicker, deeper understanding.
• "The deep impact with school AI is you give a pulse check to your students once a week… it's like a much more granular, much more frequent [survey]." — Hicks [02:54]
• Adaptive Conversations: AI can follow up on students’ well-being beyond academics. If a student shares a struggle, the AI can probe gently for more context.
• "There’s a lot of different reasons [for struggling], and you can go and dig into that way deeper than a survey ever can." — Hicks [03:23]

4. Student Voice and Isolation

• For many, school is "a very isolated experience" and students often hesitate to open up to peers or teachers due to fear of judgment or consequences. [03:48–04:20]
• AI as a Safe Space: Kids "can get into this conversation and they'll share things that are really different than what they might say to friends or, or to a teacher." — Hicks [04:40]

5. Academic and Personal Development Integration

• SchoolAI aggregates ongoing academic data and qualitative insights: from writing assignments (e.g., students repeatedly attempting a newspaper lead on Abraham Lincoln [05:00]) to social-emotional signals.
• The platform enables teachers to personalize support and "GPS who needs my help on what."
• "You personalize with the chat agent, but you're personalizing with the teacher's ability to kind of GPS who needs my help on what." — Hicks [05:42]
• Focus on fostering confidence, self-efficacy, and student well-being—more than just academics. [06:08–06:15]

6. Combining Academic and Experiential Data

• Traditional edtech rarely connects academic progress with personal well-being. SchoolAI bridges this gap.
• "It's hard to build a platform whereby you can get both of those things right…" — Hicks [06:24]
• Many student struggles aren’t academic (echoing Maslow's hierarchy: basic needs come first). [06:46–07:00]

7. Evidence & Impact

• Formative & Qualitative Evidence: Teachers and districts using SchoolAI provide real-world case studies reflecting positive change [07:16–08:45].
• Current research involves a dozen districts, with year-over-year A/B testing underway.
  • A district leader shared: "We see the data when a kid is in a classroom with a teacher that's using school AI versus the ones that don't. And I need to stop leaving this up to the teachers…" — Hicks [09:31]
• Long-Term Vision: Continuous, data-driven improvement could make end-of-year high-stakes testing obsolete.
  • "Imagine a world where you don't need the state test at the end… because you just knew how they were doing all along and were able to fix it..." — Hicks [08:46]

8. Growth and Funding

• SchoolAI recently closed a $25 million funding round for product development, hiring educational strategists, and expanding district partnerships. [09:56–12:10]
• Vision: "Connect the dots across people, data and action… magnify connection." — Hicks [10:18–10:46]
• Differentiated Support: Community coaches (former teachers, instructional designers) help schools apply AI solutions tailored to local needs.

9. ASU+GSV Summit Experience

• Attending the summit is "chaotic collaboration": rapid, back-to-back conversations, learning from other leaders, sharing solutions and struggles. [12:42–13:28]
  • "It's a long game where we're all trying to make something that's like, you know, education is one of society's most important pillars, and we're all working together to improve that 100%." — Hicks [13:18]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We have agents that are looking at both of those things. They're saying, 'What's the student saying? But how's the writing going?'" — Caleb Hicks [05:11]
• "If you're only doing [AI tutoring], then you're not solving what I think is the real opportunity in these schools, which is people feel isolated, people feel unseen, unheard, unvalued, unmotivated." — Hicks [11:06]
• On conference energy: "I would call this, like, chaotic collaboration. Every 30 minutes, back to back, you're going to meet with a new person about a different thing." — Hicks [12:51]

---

Important Timestamps

• 00:15–01:17: Caleb’s background as a teacher and the challenge of knowing every student
• 02:27–04:47: How SchoolAI facilitates individualized, adaptive conversations and pulse checks
• 05:11–06:15: Academic and experiential personalization
• 07:16–09:31: Research findings; qualitative and formative assessment
• 09:56–12:29: Growth, funding, business strategy, differentiated community support
• 12:42–13:28: Reflections on the ASU+GSV Summit's collaborative environment

---

Summary Takeaways

• SchoolAI is focused on helping both teachers and students by uncovering the vast "in-between" space of student experience and well-being, not just academic results.
• The platform leverages AI for both academic support and personal connection, making individualized education more feasible at scale.
• Ongoing research and teacher feedback suggest positive movement toward more holistic, informed classroom environments.
• With a substantial funding round and commitment to tailored district support, SchoolAI is poised for significant growth and deeper impact.
• The ASU+GSV Summit fosters essential collaboration and idea-sharing across the rapidly-evolving edtech space.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. We are here at the ASU GSB Summit with Caleb Hicks, the CEO of School AI. Welcome.

[B]

Thank you. Good to be here.

[A]

So you are a teacher. You are a teacherpreneur. You had 300 students when you started school AI. You came from this experience of not being able to know every student in your class, wishing you could, but not being able to know. Tell us about that.

[B]

Yeah, I think, you know, when you work in education, you realize this, but pretty much everyone else does not really do the math of, you know, if you have 30 to 40 students in a classroom, seven to eight classes a day, you're talking about 300 students at a time. And we as humans, we just aren't built to know that many people, let alone be able to do anything special for them. We ask so much of teachers, you know, learning outcomes, safe social space, human development, just like safety. Of course. And it's really impossible to do it anywhere individualized at all.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I, I usually say, like, hey, I knew my, like, my like most engaged 20 kids, I knew the hardest 20 kids. And basically everyone else is kind of this anonymous middle.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

And it's not that they're usually the good kids. Like, they're the ones that are there, they're doing the work and so they're not causing you any problems. And I care so much about that middle 80% because I think I was one of that middle 80%. I was not going out of my way to answer every question for teachers. I also wasn't a problem most of the time. And, and so like, how do you, how do you help the teacher know where those 200 plus students are? Not academically. I mean, yes, academically, but really on everything else.

[A]

Know them, know them deeply.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Like schools, we have, we have attendance, we know a kid was there, we have grades. If we were able to really dig in and actually, you know, give feedback and give a grade, which is really hard when you have that many kids. Yeah. And almost nothing in between. So what I'm trying to do is help teachers and, and schools be able to see the story in between they showed up and the grade.

[A]

Exactly. So if regular education, it's very hard to individualize, differentiate, really know students. What are we doing with School AI? That makes it so much easier.

[B]

Yeah. Look, this is a hard problem and we're coming at it from an opinionated perspective that we think is really powerful. But I would say we're all learning this. We all have to figure this out. It's one of the reasons Why I come to a conference like this is like all the people that are thinking about these problems are here. And so what we've done is we've taken AI that teachers can control, manage, they can create a learning activity or do what. My favorite use case is just a quick pulse check the fastest path. The deep impact with school AI is you give a pulse check to your students once a week. Yep. That, that what I would say is it's like a much more granular, much more frequent almost what you see with some, some of the old like panorama surveys and things like that where it's, where it's like, how's it going?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the cool thing about AI is that the students it one, it adapts to what the student shares. So if the student says I'm struggling right now, it's, you can ask why. Right. Like is it, is it something in your last class? Is it something you know that, you know, it's content based or is it something social? Like there's, there's a lot of different reasons and you can go and dig into that way deeper than a survey ever can.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the students right now going to school for most kids is a very isolated experience. Them sharing something is like with friends, they're, they're going to be nervous, like am I going to get made fun of or is someone going to laugh at me? Am I going to say something stupid? Teachers is like you don't want to share a complex nuanced thing because a, you're, you're a teenager or an adolescent and you, you don't know what the reaction is going to be.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

But also, you know, you might get in trouble.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And, and so a lot of kids that, that especially that middle 80%, like they go to school and it's a very like siloed experience. Yeah. So I don't. A little bit of an interaction with something that is responsive to them, like AI, they can get into this conversation and they'll share things that are really different than what they might say to friends or, or to a teacher. Naturally.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And if you can get that information to the right people, like that's where things get really special. So yeah, we have the conversational agents sometimes that's them just chatting with, with something that the teacher set up that's doing this pulse check. Sometimes it's something academic or like, you know, I was in a classroom a couple weeks ago or you were interviewing Abraham Lincoln. And then we have these apps where so the student was writing a newspaper article as though they had just interviewed Abraham Lincoln right after the Gettysburg Address. So we have agents that are looking at both of those things. They're saying, what's the student saying? But how's the writing going?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And it's not grade the essay or grade the report or grade whatever they're written. It's, it's. Hey, these students actually took eight different attempts at writing a lead to this newspaper article. And like, they still didn't really get it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you, as the, as the teacher, like, you should go and target this with these kids. But these other kids, they sailed through for their historical accuracy is a little off. So you can start, you personalize with the chat agent, but you're personalizing with the teacher's ability to kind of GPS who needs my help on what. And sometimes that's very academic, like that example I just gave. But my favorite examples are actually much more on the, like, experiential, personal.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. They're about how you feel about school or your isolation or feeling confident or, you know, self efficacy.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Combining both of those types of data is very hard to do in traditional ed tech. Teachers do it every day. But edtech is hard to do. So it's really amazing to be able to do it.

[B]

I mean, I think it's hard to build a platform whereby you can get both of those things right. Like, you can build something that's very procedural that gets you really good data about how they're doing on math, for example. But that's typically. And it's really exactly the opposite platform where someone's going to share, like, hey, I'm kind of struggling right now completely, or hey, I love this thing. Like, how do I. Anyway.

[A]

Yeah. That the struggle may not be academic, the struggle may be something outside of

[B]

the classroom, or which Maslow's hierarchy dictates that it almost never is the academic. Right. Like, it's, it's. Yeah, you're gonna, you're usually starting with something lower on the.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

On the hierarchy.

[A]

We're always looking for, for evidence in this space as well that things are working. Of course, you've been looking at a big data set. You know, school AI has been. Many schools. Tell us about what you've been learning from the data and the research about how this is all going and you actually get into the classroom.

[B]

I think, I think there's. I would say there's two big milestones, one of which I feel like we've, we've nailed in a really interesting way, and the other one that we need to earn into as a whole market. Anyone working with AI needs to earn our way into this second milestone. The first one is like can you get formative signal again either academic or experiential kind of that qualitative side And I would say like that absolutely you can. Now how do you start measuring qualitative signal? Like that's hard. And I think for us it's a lot of the qualitative or anecdotes like it's the number of teachers that say I use this in this way and I got this outcome remarkable. That's, that's like case study white paper based. Right. I think something that we've started doing. So we were, we're like asset tier 3. So like some level of, of demonstrated academic outcomes I'm looking for as a tier one. Right. That's a multi year journey. That's like how do you know? Like how do you get up there? So, so long journey. But I think, I think to earn our way into more beyond formative, something a little more summative. It's like I don't know that, I don't know how much we want AI to be grading things without human input. But I do think that signal that you can get if we, if we do our jobs right, we get into the psychometrics of it all. We get into the, and this is mixing AI interaction and other interactions, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then you can start getting. Imagine a world where you don't need the state test at the end of the end of the year because you just knew how they were doing all along and were able to fix it as you.

[A]

And that's really the dream of a lot of this AI powered edtech and

[B]

you asked about evidence like it's early. We have about a dozen districts that we're working with as research partners that are doing longitudinal like year over year AB testing like these, these are the teachers that opted in and are using this really well and these are the ones that aren't. I, I, this is qualitative. Right. But I had, I had a district leader come to me about three weeks ago and he said hey, when are you going to give us direct student access? Because we see the data when a kid is in a classroom with a teacher that's using school AI versus the ones that don't. And I need to stop leaving this up to the teachers now that, that's a complicated, that's a complicated thing from a teacher empowerment and we believe in the teacher a lot but giving a tool directly to the students so they can get Those outcomes is something that people are asking for.

[A]

That's exciting. Let's talk about the business side for a little bit. So the school AI has been on a growth trajectory, it's been doing great. And you just raised a $25 million funding round to expand even further. Tell us about where this money is going to go, how you're going to expand product.

[B]

Yeah, I think for, for me, given the aspiration we have a lot of that's going to go into continuing building the product.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Product design, engineering, making sure that we're solving real problems for real teachers and students and school leaders over time. Our aspiration is like connect the dots across people, data and action. Right. So you know, in, in the room above my garage where we just started, we, or we decided to start school AI, we wrote on a whiteboard, what is the job we want a do. Yeah. And we wrote magnify connection.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yes. And, and so that hopefully you hear that and how I'm talking about, it's like, yes, the learning, but it's really about this other stuff. Right. Lower on Maslow's hierarchy. How do you lift students up to where the academic side can even be the focus? And so that, that, that requires you to start solving problems for the whole school community so you can build things so that teachers can save a few hours a week. And that's great. And we should do that. You can build like an AI tutor that adapts to students and that's great and we should do that. But if you're only doing that right then then you're not solving what I think is the real opportunity in these schools, which is people feel isolated, people feel unseen, unheard, unvalued, motivated. And, and yeah. And so how do you connect the dots where it's like this person needs this and so this person should do this.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And if they do, then this outcome will be there. And so mostly there is where that, that money will go. Furthermore, is like you just got to build a team in this market's a very people driven business. You got to go be in the schools with people. So you know, we've hired, you know, typical salespeople. And then one other special thing we're doing is we had educate, we call them community coaches, but they're essentially educational strategists, former teachers, instructional designers that will come into your school and district and work with you on applying AI for what matters for you.

[A]

That's great.

[B]

So I have an expert in supporting multilingual students. That's a problem that in your district, if you have it, it's a big challenge and that some other districts don't have. So that person's going to work with them versus a math specialist versus language arts. So we have that community. We've got 12 of those around the country that are working in depth with these schools.

[A]

Differentiated support for different needs. That's all about last question for you. So if people who have never been to the ASUGSV summit, what is the energy here like for you? What is, what do you get? What's the most you get out of the summit?

[B]

My favorite thing is you're coming. You're coming to a place where a lot of the smartest people working on similar problems are gathering together for a week.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I would call this, like, chaotic collaboration. Every 30 minutes, back to back, you're going to meet with a new person about a different thing. I think that some of that is the business side of, of growing in ad tech. But the most fulfilling part of that for me is when you're meeting with other founders and other other people building and sharing what's working, what's not working, so that you can. All right, like, it's. It's a small world. It's a long game where we're all trying to make something that's like, you know, education is one of society's most important pillars, and we're all working together to improve that 100%.

[A]

Caleb Hicks, CEO of School AI. Thanks so much for being here.

[B]

Yeah, good to see you.