What We Heard at BbT26: How the Conversation Around AI Has Changed

# AI

9 minute read

Lisa Clark

Twelve months is a long time in artificial intelligence.

At last year’s conference, many conversations centered on institutions wrestling with fundamental questions: Should students use AI? How should faculty respond? What role should AI play in assessment? How do we preserve academic integrity while embracing innovation?

Returning this year, one thing became immediately apparent. Higher education is no longer reacting to AI. It is beginning to define how AI should serve teaching and learning.

Across keynote sessions, product demonstrations, customer panels, focus groups, and countless hallway conversations, institutions were no longer asking whether AI belongs in higher education. Instead, they were focused on a more practical, and far more meaningful, question: How do we implement AI responsibly in ways that strengthen teaching, learning, and student success?

That shift defined Building Blackboard Together 2026.

Attendees increasingly discussed AI as a tool within a broader educational ecosystem, one that supports faculty expertise, streamlines routine work, and creates new opportunities for learning while keeping human judgment at the center. Throughout the conference, conversations consistently returned to the same priorities: trust, transparency, thoughtful implementation, and measurable educational impact.

The AI conversation has matured

Perhaps the most noticeable difference from previous conferences was the nature of the questions institutions are asking. Not long ago, many discussions centered on AI’s capabilities. Today, conversations are increasingly focused on governance, instructional design, faculty confidence, accessibility, assessment, and student success. Institutions are moving beyond experimentation toward intentional implementation.

This evolution reflects a broader understanding that AI itself is not the goal. The goal is improving educational experiences for both students and instructors and navigating change in an age where technological advancements are moving faster than ever before.

Throughout the conference, clients shared examples of integrating AI in ways that reduce administrative burden, support course development, enhance learner engagement, and provide faculty with more time to focus on the uniquely human aspects of teaching, including mentoring, feedback, and meaningful interactions with students.

That shift represents an important milestone. The conversation is becoming less about the technology itself and more about the educational outcomes institutions hope to achieve.

Innovation built around institutional priorities

Of course, Building Blackboard Together also showcased continued innovation across the Blackboard ecosystem. Attendees received an early look at new product capabilities designed to support teaching and learning, improve instructor workflows, strengthen accessibility , enhance analytics, and expand the thoughtful use of AI throughout the platform. Beyond product details ( which you can read more about here ), what stood out throughout the conference was not only the pace of innovation, but also how intentionally it is being shaped.

Many of the most engaging sessions centered on listening to institutional feedback, validating ideas with customers, and inviting educators to help influence future product direction. Equally valuable were the conversations happening between institutions themselves. Throughout the conference, educators openly shared implementation strategies, lessons learned, and practical approaches, thus reinforcing that innovation in higher education advances most effectively through collaboration.

Making Learning More Visible

Among the most engaging conversations at BbT26 were those surrounding assessment and academic integrity. As generative AI becomes an increasingly common part of students’ learning experiences, institutions are recognizing that traditional questions about authorship, while still important, are no longer sufficient on their own. Increasingly, educators are asking whether learning has occurred at all and, if so, how it can be made visible.

That shift was reflected throughout discussions around assessment, including customer feedback on a new Gradebook (Grid View) design and dedicated focus groups exploring the future of assessment within Blackboard. Blackboard product team members invited academics, instructional designers, and administrators into the design process for a new Gradebook interface. The discussions reinforced a growing interest in richer evidence that captures learning as it develops over time through application, revision, reflection, and instructor feedback. The result is an intentionally reimagined Gradebook experience designed to better support modern assessment practices, instructor workflows, and richer evidence of student learning.

The Gradebook discussions were not the only conversations reflecting this broader shift. Another example was the introduction of Cursive by Blackboard , Blackboard’s new writing process visibility solution. Rather than positioning the capability simply as a response to AI, the conversations emphasized its broader educational potential through its ability to provide instructors with richer evidence of student learning over time while supporting authentic assessment practices and informed academic judgment.

These conversations closely align with emerging work around the Transform Evidence Arc (TEA) , a conceptual framework that explores how institutions can move beyond evaluating isolated artifacts toward understanding the broader learning journey. Together with innovations such as Cursive by Blackboard, they reflect a growing emphasis on expanding the educational evidence available to instructors and viewing learning as a process rather than a single point of evaluation.

The TEA framework reflects many of the same ideas echoed throughout the conference: assessment should empower instructor judgment by providing deeper insight into learning, not simply additional data. As AI continues to reshape how students produce evidence of learning, higher education has an opportunity to move beyond identifying how work was produced and toward understanding how learning developed.

Responsible AI begins with trust

Another consistent theme throughout the conference was the importance of responsible AI. These discussions centered around a growing consensus that responsible AI is not achieved through technology alone. Policies, faculty development, governance, transparency, and institutional culture all play equally important roles in ensuring AI strengthens academic quality while maintaining integrity and rigor.

Additionally, as institutions expand their use of AI, conversations increasingly focused on security, privacy, transparency, and ethical implementation. Rather than treating these considerations as separate from innovation, attendees viewed them as essential components of successful adoption.

Institutional leaders consistently emphasized that trust must be earned through thoughtful design, clear communication, and maintaining meaningful human oversight. This reflects an important reality for higher education. AI can accelerate processes, surface insights, and reduce repetitive work, but decisions that shape student learning, assessment, and academic quality continue to rely on the expertise of educators.

Looking ahead

Perhaps one of the most encouraging takeaways from Building Blackboard Together 2026 was optimism. Higher education is moving beyond asking what AI can do and toward asking how AI can responsibly support better teaching, stronger assessment, and more meaningful learning experiences. That evolution reflects a growing confidence across the higher education community. Institutions are approaching AI with greater clarity, greater intentionality, and a renewed focus on educational outcomes rather than technological novelty.

If BbT26 demonstrated anything, it was that higher education has entered a new phase of technological impact. Questions are becoming more thoughtful, less reactive, and more strategic, with the focus increasingly centered on creating better learning experiences for students and empowering instructors with tools that complement their expertise.

The technology will continue to evolve. The commitment to teaching and learning remains constant. That was perhaps the clearest message we heard throughout Building Blackboard Together 2026.

Want to learn more about Blackboard’s AI announcements from Building Blackboard Together? Check out the highlights from the main stage Product Keynote and Blackboard LMS Roadmap .

FAQs

How is AI changing higher education?

AI is changing higher education in a multitude of ways. At Blackboard, we believe that AI is an opportunity to address many of the sector’s pain points, including reducing the administrative load for instructors, evolving assessments, and aligning learning outcomes with employable skills. Our Building Blackboard Together ’26 conference, held in Dallas in July, brought together hundreds of higher education leaders to explore and discuss these areas.

What is responsible AI in education?

Responsible AI in education happens when AI capabilities are tailored to the learning environment, ensuring equitable access, institutional control, and data security. Blackboard’s Trustworthy AI Approach outlines the responsible guidelines that inform AI use in our teaching and learning solutions.

How can AI support teaching and learning?

AI supports teaching and learning in three crucial ways: improving instructor efficiency, powering authentic assessment tasks, and evolving overall assessment practices.

Blackboard LMS supports all three of these. The AI Design Assistant provides instructors inspiration for course structure, content, assessments, and grading rubrics; AI Conversation delivers engaging, real-world tasks that build practical learner skills; and our Future of Assessment working group is collaborating to establish best practices for AI-enabled assessment.

How does AI improve student success?

Responsible AI use can improve student success in various ways. Fundamentally, AI is now commonly used in the workforce – thus, including it within learning tasks is an important step to help students develop their careers. The AVA Playground in Blackboard LMS provides equitable access to a range of AI models, allowing both instructors and students alike to experiment with AI – all in a safe and controlled environment.

What is authentic assessment in the age of AI?

Authentic assessment takes on even more importance in the age of AI, as it encourages instructors to devise relevant tasks and students to produce original work. We believe that AI demands a refresh of Bloom’s Taxonomy, however, as outlined by Dr. Lisa Clark in this whitepaper released in 2025 .

How can educators implement AI responsibly?

Educators implement AI responsibly when learning technology empowers them to do so. The Blackboard LMS extends AI capabilities to educators in a variety of workflows, however the instructor has control on when and how AI is used. They can review, edit, and ultimately accept AI’s suggestions prior to them being applied in the course.

What were the key AI themes from Building Blackboard Together 2026?

The key AI themes from Building Blackboard Together ’26 reflected a conversation that has evolved significantly since previous years’ conferences. The focus has moved from specific AI capabilities to a more nuanced discussion on where AI fits within the learning ecosystem and best practices to advance learning accordingly. While a variety of themes were discussed at Bbt26, trust, transparency, thoughtful implementation, and measurable educational impact were the top priorities for institutional leaders.

Topics: Artificial Intelligence

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