Artificial intelligence has brought changes to how teachers do their jobs, but professional development isn’t necessarily keeping up with those technological developments. That’s why several major education and technology companies have been building community spaces for educators who use their products to learn more about AI.
The most recent company to do this is Microsoft.
The tech company is launching Microsoft Elevate for Educators, which aims to connect educators with their peers and with resources and credentials to help prepare them and their students to better leverage AI tools.
“Fundamentally, Microsoft, as an AI provider, has a responsibility at a national level to build real capacity to make AI literacy a universal basic skill,” said Justin Spelhaug, the president of Microsoft Elevate, in an interview with Education Week. “It’s on us, it’s on others—our competitors and friends in the ecosystem. We have a responsibility to do that.”
Other companies and education organizations provide these kinds of communities and resources for their users and members. For instance, Google has Google Educators Groups, Apple has Apple Education Community, MagicSchool has MagicSchool Pioneers, and ISTE+ASCD has Connect.
With Microsoft’s new program, educators and schools can gain access to a global educator community to help them strengthen skills and collaborate on best practices in using AI in teaching, according to the press release.
The Microsoft Elevate Educators and Microsoft Elevate Schools communities will offer free year-round membership and expanded training opportunities and resources. Educators have access to self-paced courses, live sessions, AI-powered simulations, as well as industry-recognized credentials. School districts can also gain recognition for “supporting educators’ professional growth and demonstrating measurable impact in classrooms and across education systems,” according to the press release.
The program is part of the company’s efforts to provide resources and training around generative AI to school districts across the country and even around the world. Last year Microsoft announced a partnership with the American Federation of Teachers to provide free AI teacher training.
Providing teachers with professional development on ed tech, and AI specifically, has been a challenge as district and school leaders juggle other pressing priorities, such as lower student academic achievement and poor youth mental health, and because many districts and schools lack the expertise on these fast-evolving technologies.
Rising number of schools are providing teacher training on AI
In the three years since ChatGPT first gained widespread attention in the K-12 world, though, there has been progress in the percentage of teachers who are receiving professional development on AI.
In 2025, 50% of teachers reported having at least one single professional development session on using AI in their work, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey conducted between September and November. That’s almost double the percentage from the survey conducted from January to March 2024, when 29% of teachers said the same.
Ed-tech companies’ approach to creating communities for educators is popular for teachers who want to get training on specific tools, but who might not have it readily available from their school or district, said Dylan Kane, a math teacher at Lake County High School in Leadville, Colo.
“A lot of teachers want community,” Kane said. “Teaching can be isolating. It can be hard to build community with the teachers immediately around you,” for many reasons, including teacher turnover and scheduling conflicts.
For Kane, however, these communities that are focused on how to use AI products is not something that he needs or is interested in. He has adopted a mostly low-tech pedagogy because he doesn’t believe more technology is what will help many of his students who are falling behind and unmotivated, he said.
“One place where I think tech tools can be helpful is in creating materials for interventions. I’m totally open to that as an avenue that AI and technology can help me right now,” Kane said. “I don’t know that I need training. I just don’t see a big gap in my practice where what I need is the type of technological skills that Microsoft and other companies are selling or giving away for free.”
