InstructureCon 2025: Partner & Product Announcements

At Instructure, we believe that both educators and learners deserve tools that help them thrive at every step. That belief was front and center at InstructureCon 2025 in Spokane, where thousands of educators, technologists, and innovators came together with a shared purpose: to shape a more connected, empowering future for education.

From AI that supports classroom creativity and efficiency, to new ways of connecting skills to real-world opportunities, everything we’re building is designed to serve all sides of the learning journey. With reliable, scalable technology in the background, educators can focus on teaching, learners can focus on growing, and institutions can focus on meaningful results.

IgniteAI: Secure, In-Context AI Across the Teaching and Learning Experience

Educators are cautiously optimistic about the role of generative AI in education. They’re curious about its potential but need guidance through a maze of isolated tools, each with its own risks, limitations, and steep learning curves.
That’s why we take a “push/pull” approach to development. We partnered with over 50 institutions to validate solutions, test, and co-create IgniteAI: a new “conductor” for AI in education. IgniteAI unifies AI-powered capabilities across Instructure products and third-party tools, orchestrating them into a cohesive experience for both educators and learners. 

Designed to build trust, drive adoption, and create educational value, IgniteAI allows institutions to:

• Seamlessly integrate AI into their workflows, with intuitive tools and openness at its core, allowing institutions to use the models and tools that suit them best.
• Maintain control with clear data transparency and robust "AI Nutrition Facts," which clarify what models are in use, what data is accessed, and how privacy is protected for every tool.
• Support teaching and learning with co-creative experiences that keep educator and learner relationships at the center.

Across Canvas and Mastery, this includes AI-powered use cases releasing on a rolling basis throughout the remainder of the year, including:

• Streamlining content creation for educators without sacrificing quality by drawing on course materials and academic standards.
• Meeting the needs of all learners by addressing barriers to success, like language and accessibility.
• Simplifying grading and feedback while always keeping the educator in the driver’s seat. 

Institutions will have full control over which features they enable, with granular settings available down to the course level. 

For institutions looking to elevate their AI-powered workflows, we’re also introducing IgniteAgent—a new premium product designed to bring intelligent, conversational assistance to Canvas and beyond. With IgniteAgent, educators can complete complex, multi-step tasks such as extending deadlines or converting PDFs with a single prompt, drawing on personalized actions across more than 500 APIs.

While IgniteAgent enhances Instructure tools, it also acts as an orchestrator for your entire edtech ecosystem. Using the Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard, trusted partners can integrate their own agents and workflows, allowing IgniteAgent to coordinate actions across both Instructure and third-party platforms directly within the agent chat.

IgniteAgent will be available in 2026, unlocking the ability to tackle even the most sophisticated educational challenges through natural conversation, no matter where the tools or data reside.

➡️ Read the full announcement
 

Global Partnership with OpenAI: New LLM Assignment Type in Canvas

More than 70% of students already turn to ChatGPT as their large language model (LLM) of choice, often without guardrails, guidance, or pedagogical intent, posing real risks to academic integrity and authentic learning. As part of the IgniteAI launch, Instructure is proud to announce a strategic collaboration with OpenAI, forging a path toward embedded AI learning experiences within Canvas.

LLM-enabled assignments in Canvas integrate educator-led design with the power of LLMs to create dynamic, personalized learning experiences. Educators retain full control, aligning AI interactions with specific learning outcomes while gaining visibility into student engagement. Learners benefit from rich, adaptive conversations within Canvas, where their privacy is safeguarded and their progress is captured as meaningful learning evidence that is automatically integrated into the Gradebook. 

This AI-enhanced workflow reduces administrative overhead, so teachers can focus on nurturing critical thinking and higher-order skills through engaging, outcome-aligned assignments.

This collaboration will:

• Allow educators to create responsible, effective AI interactions in their courses.
• Provide students with personalized, ethical learning support through integrated AI agents.
• Advance research on AI’s impact on pedagogy, equity, and engagement in education.

OpenAI is the launch integration partner to power LLM-enabled assignments, with plans to support additional LLMs via a “bring your own LLM key” model. LLM-enabled assignments will be available to Canvas customers at no additional cost, but institutions will need to provide their own LLM API key. This feature is currently in development, with plans to start an early adopter program later this year.

➡️ Read the full announcement
 

Canvas Career: The AI-Powered, Skills-First Learning Experience

As the half-life of skills shrinks and industries evolve at breakneck speed, learners need support that bridges the gap between education and employability. This year, we took a bold step forward in helping learners turn education into opportunity with the launch of Canvas Career. 

Canvas Career helps institutions bridge the gap between classroom and career by:

• Mapping course content and assessments to in-demand job skills using AI.
   
• Allowing learners to curate personal career portfolios and skill profiles.
   
• Enabling organizations to align learning pathways with real-world workforce needs.
   

This new offering empowers organizations to deliver scalable, skill-based learning programs to learners and continuously prepare them for a rapidly changing job market. 

➡️ Read the full announcement

Meaningful Improvements to Everyday Workflows in Canvas, Mastery, and Parchment

We’re also excited to announce several key enhancements across our product suite, which reflect our commitment to innovation, accessibility, and meaningful outcomes.

• Redesigned dashboards and modules in Canvas provide improved navigation and a seamless experience across devices, including mobile. 
   
• We’ve introduced differentiation tags to further support differentiated instruction at scale, making it easier than ever for educators to effectively personalize learning pathways. We've also simplified the process of LTI tool discovery and management for administrators, focusing on evidence and efficiency.
   
• Assessment capabilities have been expanded to support authentic and equitable evaluation. New features include specialized STEM item types, enhanced proctoring within New Quizzes, and evaluation portfolios for students to demonstrate their learning. 
   

• The entire suite of Canvas products has achieved WCAG 2.2 AA compliance following a recent Voluntary Product Accessibility Test (VPAT). This milestone for Canvas LMS, Canvas Mobile, Commons, Credentials, Catalog, Impact, and Studio reflects our ongoing efforts to exceed accessibility standards and ensure equitable access for all users.

   

  

   

• Powerful updates to Mastery by Instructure include a streamlined item management, AI-driven item alignment and generation, support for Spanish-language assessments, and an enhanced home page designed to deliver actionable insights and support data-informed instruction.
   
• In the Parchment experience, Canvas Credentials will transition to the Parchment Award family, signifying an exciting future with a more holistic view of learner achievement across a unified platform. 

These updates represent just some of our ongoing work to provide solutions that elevate teaching and learning. InstructureCon has always been about the passion, ideas, and relentless focus that people have on helping every student thrive. And that’s why so much of what we build starts with learners and educators.

Whether you joined us in Spokane, tuned in from afar, or are reading up on the highlights now, thank you for being part of this movement.