A few weeks ago, I published a post about the types of AI tools that teachers are searching for and the reasons behind their interest. I based my conclusions on the web analytics I review on my popular website, Tom's Takes: AI Tools and Views. 

Since then, I've been looking at the web traffic patterns of popular AI tools used by educators to see what insights I might glean. More specifically, I leveraged SimilarWeb to compare the traffic to 20 popular AI-powered services utilized by educators.

Included are prominent lesson planning/teacher assistant platforms such as MagicSchool, Eduaide, and Curipod, alongside student tutoring tools like Khanmigo, Sizzle, and TutorAI, as well as grading and plagiarism detection tools such as Turnitin, Gradescope, Smodin, and Zipgrade. 

Looking at their 2024 web traffic, three patterns stand out:

1. Educators REALLY Want AI’s Help with Grading and Plagiarism. Of the top 5 visited sites on the list, four are dedicated primarly to grading and/or plagiarism detection. They include Turnitin, Gradescope, Smodin AI, and Zipgrade, with MagicSchool being the outlier.

   What’s difficult to parcel out is whether educators are primarily seeking help with grading, plagiarism, or a combination of the two. For instance, Turnitin is a well-known plagiarism-detection company, but among its most popular products are Feedback Studio and Gradescope, which are focused on grading and feedback. Zipgrade, another popular grading product, doesn’t even offer a plagiarism detection service.

2. Educators Are Not Terribly Interested in AI Student Tutoring. The most surprising finding is the relatively low traffic to Khanmigo. Khanmigo, as you may know, is an AI chatbot from the Khan Academy dedicated to providing personalized learning experiences for students and has received widespread press coverage, including features in the New York Times. But, according to SimilarWeb, Khanmigo only has 61,000 monthly visits. I say “only” because Turnitin has over 12 million monthly visits, Gradescope has 6.18 million, and Smodin 4.45 million. Even Zipgrade, at 515,000, has 7.5 times more traffic than Khanmigo. Khanmigo is built specifically to help schools introduce AI personalized tutoring to students. Seems that teachers are not very interested.

3. Grading and Plagiarism AI Tools Are Far More Important to Educators than Lesson Planning AI: Aggregating the monthly visits to the most popular AI grading and plagiarism detection tools (Turnitin, Gradescope, Smodin, and Zipgrade), the total exceeds 23 million. In contrast, the combined monthly visits to the lesson planning/teacher assistant tools (MagicSchool, Eduaide, Curipod, Teachermate, lessonplans.ai, and Education Copilot) amount to roughly 1.6 million. That’s a 14-to-1 ratio. And I didn’t even count the traffic to other popular grading websites on the list.

The disparities continue to grow. The AI student tutoring offerings on the list (TutorAI, Sizzle, and Khanmigo) amount to only 600,000 monthly visits. The four top AI grading/plagiarism services total over 23 million. That’s a 38-1 disparity.

I know I'm no statistician, and these inferences are drawn from a limited data set. But the disparities are striking, aligning with what I observe on my own website - a broad swath of educators searching for AI tools to automate time-consuming responsibilities outside the classroom, rather than those focused on directly enhancing the student learning experience.

While the most exciting potential of AI lies in its ability to offer tailored educational experiences, catering to the diverse needs of our students, it's clear that teachers are currently more receptive to tools that can make their lives easier.

In my 23 years of teaching teachers edtech, I understand that meeting teachers where they are is crucial. They’re busy. They’re tired. If we can demonstrate how AI can streamline their administrative burdens, they'll be more open to exploring its potential for student learning down the line. It's an incremental process, one that slowly builds confidence and awareness, but one that's often necessary to drive sustainable tech adoption in education.