ASU+GSV 2026: What We Heard in our Conversations (and Between the Lines)

The Tyton Partners consulting team logged more than 200 meetings at ASU+GSV this year – across early childhood and K-12, postsecondary, workforce, and the full spectrum of investors.

What follows isn’t a recap of sessions. It’s what stayed with us after the meetings, the side conversations, and the recurring tensions that surfaced once you heard the same signal from different corners of the market.

1) AI Is Growing Up – And Getting More Human

A year ago, the dominant narrative was simple: AI is coming for education, and it’s coming fast. This year, the tone was more grounded and more interesting.

Across conversations with institutions, investors, and operators the discussion has shifted from possibility to precision. The question is no longer whether AI will matter, but where it should be deployed, how it actually improves workflows and learning opportunities, and how we measure its impact in practice. That shift toward application is a sign of maturation, but it’s also revealing just how complex this next phase will be.

One of the most consistent themes we heard was the breakdown of the “human vs. AI” binary. The more useful framing – one that is starting to guide real decision-making – is much more specific: what tasks are best served by AI, and where is human judgment, trust, and interaction non-negotiable? In many cases, AI is gaining traction as a back-end enabler – supporting workflows, driving efficiency, and augmenting decision-making – while skepticism remains higher in student-facing use cases where trust and experience are paramount.

At the same time, the variation in readiness across the ecosystem is striking. Institutions, faculty and educators, and students are operating with very different levels of familiarity and comfort, raising real concerns about an emerging “AI divide.” The long-term enthusiasm remains intact, but the near-term reality is uneven adoption, cautious experimentation, and a growing need for stakeholder alignment and evidence.

In short: AI is being tested against the real constraints of education systems, and that’s where the real work begins.

2) The EdTech Narrative Is Under Pressure

If AI conversations felt more mature, the broader edtech narrative, particularly in K-12, felt more fragile.

More specifically, the current talk-track posits that while technology may have delivered gains in efficiency and productivity, it is not delivering on the academic outcomes promised or reported. And, that gap is no longer easy to paper over. District leaders know it. Investors know it. Increasingly and stridently, parents know it too.

Pushback on students’ screen time and the benefits of classroom technology has also accelerated, adding pressure on districts to justify not just how much technology they are using, but why. Concurrently, the explosive growth of AI-powered experiences – both inside and outside schools – is complicating an already delicate narrative, raising new questions about efficacy, safety, and the role of technology in the learning experience.

Not surprisingly, leaders of companies and non-profit organizations partnering with districts feel besieged by this messaging, and the way academics and policy leaders are picking at and through reported performance and outcomes data. Expect response(s) from those now in the crosshairs of this anti-tech movement.

The result is not a rejection of edtech, but a reset. The market is moving into a phase where credibility must be re-earned. That means tighter claims, clearer evidence, and a more disciplined connection between product, implementation, and student outcomes.

For many companies and organizations, this represents an urgent call to action. It’s no longer enough to sell potential. The expectation is proof.

3) Rethinking Scale in a Personalized World

One of the more subtle but important shifts we heard across conversations was a reframing of what “scale” actually means in education.

Historically, scale has been synonymous with growth – more users, more institutions, broader reach. But as the field leans more heavily into personalization and learner-centered design, that definition is starting to feel increasingly incomplete.

Several conversations challenged the assumption that the most valuable solutions will also be the most traditionally scalable. In practice, building around the learner often requires going deep – designing for specific contexts, populations, and use cases. The impact shows up first at a local or system level, and only later, if at all, expands outward.

This is beginning to reshape how both operators and investors think about success. There is early but notable momentum toward alternative capital approaches that are more willing to fund for durability, impact, and system-level change – not just rapid expansion and outsized returns.

In this emerging model, scale is less about speed and more about substance. Depth is not a limitation, it’s a foundation.

4) The Convergence of Talent, Skills, and Outcomes Is Real – and Messy

Few themes were as pervasive as the growing pressure to connect learning more directly to individuals’ economic opportunity and outcomes.

Across stakeholder groups, there is increasing alignment around the need for clearer pathways from education to “good work.” Skills-based hiring, credential transparency, and ROI-driven decision-making are no longer fringe ideas. Rather, they are becoming central to how the system is evaluated.

But while the direction is clear, the system itself remains fragmented. We heard repeated tension between preparing learners for the jobs of the future and addressing the immediate talent needs of today’s employers. However, the underlying infrastructure required to connect skills, credentials, and labor market outcomes – particularly data systems – is still underdeveloped.

This dynamic creates a paradox: expectations for alignment are rising quickly, but the tools to enable that alignment are lagging the need and expectations.

The opportunity is significant, but so is the complexity. Bridging this gap will require not just new products, but more importantly new levels of coordination across education providers, employers, and policymakers.

5) Capital Is Cautious and Remains Highly Selective

From an investor perspective, the mood at ASU+GSV was measured, if not muted. And, from our pre-conference conversations, a decent number of industry investors elected to sit out this edition of ASU+GSV.

The M&A market remains active, with bright spots in the lower-middle market and among a cohort of high-quality businesses across certain segments within the K-12 and postsecondary sectors. But the broader posture is more cautious than in prior years.

What stood out most is that many of the constraints are not about technology risk. Instead, they are more fundamental: realistic assumptions about market growth, valuation (mis)alignment between buyers and sellers, and the ability to underwrite investments in a more uncertain macro-economic environment.

In response, we are seeing increased interest in services and tech-enabled services models, which offer clearer paths to revenue and resilience. There is also a growing recognition that education may be somewhat insulated from the pace of AI disruption seen in other sectors, given the slower rate at which districts and institutions can absorb change.

The net effect is an investor cohort striving to stay engaged and find opportunities but ruthlessly disciplined in that pursuit.

6) Distribution Is Emerging as the Real Battleground

Perhaps the most pragmatic takeaway – especially in K-12 and Higher Education – was the reminder that product is not the primary constraint. Distribution is.

Many organizations have built credible solutions with strong value propositions. But getting those solutions into schools and classrooms – and ensuring they are actually used – is a far more persistent challenge.

Institutional procurement processes remain complex, decision-making is fragmented, and in a market that is increasingly cautious, even the most compelling products still struggle without a clear path to adoption.

As a result, go-to-market strategy and effective execution is a core competency on which company leaders are focused. Partnerships, channel strategies, and the ability to navigate institutional buying processes are becoming critical differentiators. In many cases, they matter as much as – or more than – the product itself. An extension of this GTM emphasis is the quality of and investment in implementation and customer success efforts by companies. “Selling” is simply the first part of the equation.

What Comes Next: From Signal to Action

If there is a unifying thread across these themes, it is an orientation toward pragmatism and accountability.

The market is moving past broad promises and into a phase defined by trade-offs, constraints, and real-world implementation. AI is no longer being evaluated on potential, but on performance. Buyers are more skeptical and more disciplined. And capital remains highly selective, placing a premium on clarity of value and durability of business models.

For operators, this raises the bar. It is no longer enough to have a compelling product or a strong narrative; you need a clear answer to where you win, how you scale (on new terms), and how you deliver measurable outcomes. For investors, the opportunity is still compelling, but requires deeper domain insight and value creation theses, and a more nuanced view of risk, particularly as the lines between technology, services, and outcomes continue to blur.

At Tyton Partners, we see this moment not as a slowdown, but as a sorting mechanism. The next wave of winners in education will be defined less by ambition and more by execution – by their ability to navigate complexity, build trust, and connect learning to real economic and student/ learner outcomes.

We are actively working with companies, institutions, and investors across these challenges – from defining AI strategy and product-market fit, to evaluating growth pathways, to navigating capital and transaction decisions in a more complex market environment.

If these themes resonate, we welcome the opportunity to compare notes and explore what they mean for your organization.

Contact us to continue the conversation.