Over the years, edX has been at the forefront of identifying and mobilizing new technologies that have the power to transform teaching and learning. And no technology has been as potentially transformative for education as generative AI.

Two months ago, edX was one of the first to announce new AI-enabled tools aimed at empowering learners and educators to achieve world-class learning outcomes. We debuted our in-platform learning assistant, edX Xpert, and the edX ChatGPT plugin. These groundbreaking tools are already being actively used by learners to discover career-relevant learning pathways, receive learning assistance, and get real-time support. Today, we’re expanding the number of learners who have access, giving hundreds of thousands of additional learners the ability to access Xpert’s features, beginning with open courses.  

Enhancing the Learner Experience with edX Xpert

Our vision for Xpert is straightforward: It's help at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere. When learners see the Xpert icon, they can feel confident in progressing through their learning journey with real-time, personalized support that adapts to meet their evolving needs. Xpert leverages the ChatGPT API to provide learners with real-time, personalized academic and customer support as they learn on edX.

Xpert is trained to provide friendly and intelligent conversational support across a range of learner needs. Working alongside edX’s career coaches, student success managers, tutors, and 24/7 live technical support specialists, Xpert will provide both academic and customer support, serving as a side-by-side tutor for learners in courses and helping to recommend the steps to help learners figure out what’s next in their journey. In addition, Xpert also offers:

• Unit Summaries: Creates brief summaries of video lectures and text material within courses.
• Academic Assistance: Provides breakdowns of complex concepts from course material, questions to help learners master tricky content, and recommendations of modules and content to review and revisit.  
• Course Discovery: Matches learners with best-fit program options to learn the skills to meet every professional moment.
• Student Support: Shares clear advice and step-by-step solutions when learners encounter any technical barriers.

Connecting Learners with Opportunity through the edX ChatGPT Plugin 

While Xpert guides learners on the edX platform, the new edX ChatGPT plugin makes the full range of our courses and programs discoverable to potential learners right within OpenAI’s ChatGPT interface. It’s available now in the ChatGPT Plugin store. You can read more here about how to download plugins for your own ChatGPT account. Check out the video below to see the plugin in action. 

edX was one of the first education platforms to release a plugin with OpenAI to bring more value to learners and partners. The edX plugin is exciting for two reasons:

1. Matching the right learner to the right course or program: Through simple conversational prompts, prospective learners can find the program best aligned to their goals. This is live on ChatGPT Plus right now.
2. Amplifying course content reach: Partners that have created audit track courses on edX can opt-in to allow ChatGPT users to search and learn directly from their course content, amplifying the reach of videos, text, and quizzes to engage learners. This is also live for selected courses right now.

While edX Xpert and the edX ChatGPT plugin could be considered our first foray into generative AI, they are just the beginning. We believe that generative AI, when thoughtfully and responsibly applied, offers tremendous value: It can be transformative to learner access and outcomes, enhance educators’ curriculum authoring and teaching capabilities, and expand our partners’ reach. 

As we look to the future, we are preparing to roll out additional functions in the coming weeks that align with our commitment to advance the edX platform for learning and teaching. We also look forward to sharing more about how we are opening new doors to opportunity through generative AI across our range of learning products in the coming months.