{"id":8177,"date":"2026-05-06T08:05:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/?p=8177"},"modified":"2026-05-06T14:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:19:22","slug":"chatbots-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/2026\/05\/06\/chatbots-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Partners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/files\/2026\/05\/drkaon_I_would_like_to_see_two_10_years_olds_interacting_anim_bab200cb-4b77-4814-b9d5-08408866aaa3_3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8218\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/files\/2026\/05\/drkaon_I_would_like_to_see_two_10_years_olds_interacting_anim_bab200cb-4b77-4814-b9d5-08408866aaa3_3.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/files\/2026\/05\/drkaon_I_would_like_to_see_two_10_years_olds_interacting_anim_bab200cb-4b77-4814-b9d5-08408866aaa3_3-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/files\/2026\/05\/drkaon_I_would_like_to_see_two_10_years_olds_interacting_anim_bab200cb-4b77-4814-b9d5-08408866aaa3_3-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/files\/2026\/05\/drkaon_I_would_like_to_see_two_10_years_olds_interacting_anim_bab200cb-4b77-4814-b9d5-08408866aaa3_3-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The first generation of Chatbots and concierge-style virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa have evolved into a competitive arena of client-focused virtual assistant (VA) companies, including <strong>Wishup<\/strong>, <strong>Athena<\/strong>, <strong>Belay<\/strong> and <strong>Boldly<\/strong>, where the VAs offer private, personalized information and support, and can also perform a wide array of tasks, either autonomously or under direction.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next up are <strong>Learning Partners<\/strong> (LPs), such as <strong>AskBecky<\/strong>, that offer academic coaching and support, at this point mostly in hybrid form (human coach plus AI).  However, it is widely believed that 2026 will introduce the first fully virtual <strong>Learning Partners<\/strong>, building on strong foundations demonstrated by <strong>NotebookLM<\/strong>, <strong>Khanmigo<\/strong> and others, to offer students and teachers their own personal &#8211; ostensibly lifelong &#8211; virtual <strong>Learning Partners<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Opportunity Statement:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Learning Partners <\/strong>are inevitable, and prospectively powerful, and will need lots of oversight as they develop.  How will they best fit in to every learner&#8217;s formal, informal and social learning environments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DeepSeek, Gemini<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first generation of Chatbots and concierge-style virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa have evolved into a competitive arena of client-focused virtual assistant (VA) companies,&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/2026\/05\/06\/chatbots-10\/\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Learning Partners<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":8219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emerging-markets","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8220,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8177\/revisions\/8220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec522\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}