Pearson says it plans more AI tools a week after rival warns of ChatGPT hit
9 May 2023, 11:54 | Updated: 25 July 2023, 11:46
Pearson said that it was developing new features that could help students.
Educational publisher Pearson has said that it plans to increase the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across its products, a week after its shares tanked on a warning over the technology.
The company said that it has been using AI in several products for “many years” and it expects to find more “significant positive opportunities” from the use of the technology as it develops further.
The announcement on the stock exchange comes just a week after Pearson’s shares briefly lost about 15% of their value when a US-based rival announced that its finances were taking a hit from the launch of ChatGPT.
Pearson said that it was developing new features that could help students, including software which will guide users towards areas where they need to practise more.
They also have so-called generative AI tools – those that generate text or images – in development for the start of the autumn term.
“AI has played an important role across our product portfolio for many years,” said chief executive Andy Bird.
“As generative AI develops, we expect it to create significant positive opportunities for Pearson, due to our unrivalled depth of content and data.
“Learners and educators place enormous trust in us so we have a responsibility to be thoughtful and considered in how we use this technology, whilst continuing to move at pace to enhance our products.”
Last week California-based Chegg, a rival of Pearson, said that it was not attracting as many new users as it expected due to the release of a new and improved version of ChatGPT.
The company withdrew its financial guidance for the full year, and warned that second-quarter revenue will be significantly lower than Wall Street was forecasting. Its shares cratered by about 40% as a result.
“Education is already being impacted and, over time, we believe that this will advantage Chegg,” said Chegg boss Dan Rosensweig.
“However, since March we saw a significant spike in student interest in ChatGPT. We now believe it’s having an impact on our new customer growth rate.”
