Google launches Gemini 2.5 integrated with the LearnLM model, introducing advanced AI features like multimodal learning tools, interactive quizzes, and free AI Pro access for students, marking a new era in accessible, personalised education.
Google has recently announced enhancements to its educational technology with the integration of the LearnLM model into the Gemini 2.5 platform, alongside a suite of new features tailored for learners. This significant development aims to bolster educational experiences through advanced AI capabilities designed to make knowledge more accessible and engaging.
Ben Gomes, Chief Technologist for Learning & Sustainability at Google, articulated the company’s commitment to democratising education: “Making knowledge accessible to everyone has always been our highest priority… With AI, we can do this at a speed and scale never before possible.” He emphasised that effective learning outcomes hinge on sophisticated models. The introduction of LearnLM last year established a family of AI models specifically fine-tuned for educational purposes. Gomes noted that the continuous collaboration with education experts informs the ongoing research and enhancement of these tools to better serve learning practices.
The latest iteration, Gemini 2.5, is positioned as the “world’s leading model for learning” by the company, reportedly outperforming its competitors in key educational categories. Educators have expressed a preference for Gemini 2.5 Pro, lauding its alignment with pedagogical principles and its ability to support diverse learning goals. According to Google, this upgrade marks a pivotal expansion in AI’s role within education, shifting the focus from merely providing answers to fostering understanding through explanation and reasoning. This transformative methodology aims to unravel complex topics and enhance learning efficacy.
In addition to core updates in Gemini, Google is amplifying the capabilities of NotebookLM—a tool designed to aid students and researchers in compiling information from custom sources. Features such as Audio Overviews and Mind Maps are now available, with plans to introduce Video Overviews that transform text-based content into engaging educational videos. This aligns with research indicating that multimodal information presentation—incorporating audio, visual, and textual elements—significantly improves learning outcomes, allowing users to tailor information consumption to their personal preferences.
The company also reported a rise in users turning to Google Search as an educational resource. To further enrich this platform, AI Mode has been enhanced to provide advanced reasoning capabilities and multimodality, facilitating deeper exploration of topics. This development will soon include Deep Search functionality, allowing users to access more nuanced information linked to their inquiries. Furthermore, Google is preparing to roll out Project Astra’s live capabilities within Search. This will enable users to engage in real-time questions about their surroundings, enhancing contextual understanding.
In a bid to support students more thoroughly, Google has announced a free AI Pro upgrade available to students in multiple countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, until June 2025. This initiative offers 15 months of complimentary access to Google AI Pro, featuring 2 TB of storage and comprehensive tools for writing and research. Additionally, students will soon benefit from a feature that allows for the creation of interactive practice quizzes, enabling tailored study experiences by providing hints and summarising performance metrics.
Continuing its innovation trajectory, Google is experimenting with the Sparkify feature, which aims to generate short animated videos based on user questions. In a similar vein, the Project Astra initiative is developing a conversational tutoring prototype designed to assist students through step-by-step problem-solving in their studies. This interactive tutor will promote deeper learning by creating explanatory diagrams as necessary, making complex concepts easier to grasp.
Looking ahead, Google plans to release updates to its Learn About project, with an emphasis on fostering deeper engagement by integrating user feedback into its features. Enhancements will include session history, allowing learners to revisit previous interactions, and the capability to upload personal source documents, which will help ground AI responses in users’ individual contexts.
Overall, Google’s recent innovations signify a critical shift where AI is being harnessed not merely as a tool but as a partner in the learning process, reflecting a sophisticated understanding of educational science and the diverse needs of learners worldwide. The company’s ongoing commitment to research and development underscores its ambition to shape the educational landscape for future generations.
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- https://channellife.com.au/story/google-boosts-education-with-gemini-2-5-learnlm-updates – Please view link – unable to able to access data
- https://channellife.com.au/story/google-boosts-education-with-gemini-2-5-learnlm-updates – Google has announced the integration of its LearnLM model directly into Gemini 2.5, along with additional updates to its learning products. Ben Gomes, Chief Technologist for Learning & Sustainability at Google, emphasized the importance of advanced models in supporting learning. The company stated that Gemini 2.5 Pro outperformed competitors across categories of learning science principles and was preferred by educators and pedagogy experts for supporting users’ learning goals. The infusion of LearnLM enables Gemini to focus on explanation and reasoning, helping users untangle complex questions and topics. Google highlighted updates to NotebookLM, a tool designed for studying and research using a custom set of sources, including features like Audio Overviews and Mind Maps. Additionally, Google is developing Video Overviews, which will enable users to transform notebook content into educational videos. For Google Search, the company stated that users increasingly rely on it for learning, with AI Mode now providing advanced reasoning and multimodality for deeper exploration, including links to web sources and follow-up question functionality. Google shared plans to introduce Deep Search to AI Mode and announced that AI Mode is now available to all users in the United States. Google is also implementing a custom version of Gemini 2.5 within both AI Mode and AI Overviews in the United States for delivering more detailed responses supported with web links. The company announced: “Learning also takes place in the context of the world around us. So we’re taking a big step in multimodality by bringing Project Astra’s live capabilities into AI Mode with Search Live. Beyond asking questions with text and images, soon you’ll be able to show Search what you see and ask questions about things in the world around you in real-time. Search will provide helpful information with links to explore along the way as you go back-and-forth. Search Live is coming to Labs this summer, perfect for heading back-to-school.” The Gemini app will now provide a free AI Pro upgrade to students in the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, and the United Kingdom who sign up by 30 June 2025. Eligible students receive 15 months of free access to Google AI Pro, including 2 TB of storage and access to NotebookLM, to assist with writing, studying, and homework. Google also announced global availability, starting immediately, for custom quiz creation through Gemini for students aged 18 and over. This feature allows students to generate interactive practice quizzes on any topic or uploaded materials, with the system providing hints, explanations for correct and incorrect answers, and summarizing areas of strength and those needing further study. Ongoing experiments include Sparkify, an upcoming feature to create short animated videos from user questions or ideas using Gemini and Veo models, and a conversational tutoring prototype in Project Astra. This tutor is designed to guide students through homework, offering step-by-step problem-solving assistance and generating explanatory diagrams when necessary. Google is updating its Learn About project as well. The company stated: “We’re also bringing improvements based on your feedback to Learn About, an experimental Labs project where conversational AI meets your curiosity. Through LearnLM capabilities now in Gemini models, we can deliver even more nuanced explanations and relevant connections. We’re making this experience available for more learners (including teens), adding session history so you can pick up where you left off and offering the ability to upload your own source documents so Learn About can ground explanations in your course materials, notes or research papers.”
- https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/google-learnlm-generative-ai/ – Google has introduced LearnLM, a new family of AI models fine-tuned for learning, grounded in educational research to make teaching and learning experiences more active, personal, and engaging. LearnLM is designed to inspire active learning, manage cognitive load, adapt to the learner, stimulate curiosity, and deepen metacognition. The models are integrated into existing Google products like Search, YouTube, and Gemini to enhance learning experiences. For example, in Google Search, users can adjust their AI Overview into the format that’s most useful for them, whether they want to simplify the language or break it down. On Android, Circle to Search helps people get unstuck on math and physics word problems directly from their phones and tablets. When chatting with Gemini, users can use Gems, custom versions of Gemini that can act as personal experts on any topic. Learning coach, one of the pre-made Gems, supports users in building knowledge by providing step-by-step study guidance, along with helpful practice activities like quizzes and games. On YouTube, a conversational AI tool makes it possible to figuratively “raise your hand” while watching academic videos to ask clarifying questions, get helpful explanations, or take a quiz on what you’ve been learning. These features are already rolling out to select Android users in the U.S. Google is also working with educators in a new pilot program in Google Classroom to see how LearnLM might simplify and improve the process of lesson planning. Additionally, Google is building entirely new tools and experiences that expand learning, such as Illuminate, which breaks down research papers into short audio conversations, and Learn About, an experimental Labs project where conversational AI meets your curiosity.
- https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/learnlm – LearnLM is an experimental task-specific model that has been trained to align with learning science principles when following system instructions for teaching and learning use cases. When given learning-specific system instructions, LearnLM is capable of inspiring active learning, managing cognitive load, adapting to the learner, stimulating curiosity, and deepening metacognition. LearnLM is available in AI Studio for developers to experiment with and evaluate, providing feedback that will help improve the models and the products they power. As Google improves the LearnLM experimental model on teaching and learning capabilities, these improvements are being brought into Gemini models, so when developers use Gemini for their teaching and learning applications, they can feel comfortable knowing it’s infused with research from LearnLM.
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https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2024/12/Gemini-Learning-Tools-Interoperability.html – Google has introduced Gemini LTI, an AI-powered assistant that can integrate into third-party Learning Management Systems (LMS). Gemini LTI helps enhance the educational experience for both educators and students by providing AI-driven tools and features powered by Gemini within their LMS environment. To start, Gemini LTI
integrates with Canvas by Instructure and Powerschool Schoology Learning. Educators can use the AI tools to outline a lesson plan, including learning objectives, generate a quiz and export it to Google Forms, and create a hook to spark curiosity and engage students. Students can further solidify what they’re learning in the classroom or explore new topics alongside an AI by getting in-the-moment assistance, receiving a step-by-step learning plan built around specific learning goals, brainstorming ideas for a research paper, getting feedback on writing, and preparing for interviews.
- https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/learning-in-the-ai-era/ – Google is working with experts across the industry to progress how they infuse learning science into their technology and how they measure it. They are collaborating with Digital Promise to help the industry with measurement. LearnLM, which has been recognized for its potential to make a positive impact on the world, is now available as an experimental model for preview access through Google AI Studio. This experimental research model is optimized for pedagogy, meaning it’s designed to foster understanding based on learning science. With this update, the goal is to allow more developers to experiment with and evaluate LearnLM, providing feedback that will help improve the models and the products they power. As Google improves the LearnLM experimental model on teaching and learning capabilities, these improvements are being brought into Gemini models, so when developers use Gemini for their teaching and learning applications, they can feel comfortable knowing it’s infused with research from LearnLM.
