What if every student had a tutor who was always available, always personalized, and always ready with the right feedback at the right moment? In this episode of Inside the Learning Experience, host Betheny Gross sits down with Lauren Zito, a senior research scientist at WGU Labs, to explore how AI is transforming postsecondary education — not just as a delivery tool, but as a core part of how courses are designed. They dig into the science behind why timely feedback matters, what personalization actually looks like in practice, and how role-play and simulation are opening up entirely new kinds of learning that weren't possible before. Plus: the "experience gap" facing new workers, and why Lauren believes students need to learn how to learn with AI before they can effectively work with it.

What if AI could finally help higher education do what it’s been trying to do for decades? In this episode of Inside the Learning Experience, Betheny Gross and Drew Ceccato discuss how AI is enabling new postsecondary pathways, closer alignment with workforce needs, and expanded access for learners who’ve historically been left out. From degrees to micro-credentials and everything in between, this conversation explores what the future of learning could look like—and what it will take to get there.

2025 wasn’t just another year for higher education; it was the moment theory turned into reality. Institutions stopped planning for AI and started deploying it. Things broke. New tools emerged. And long-standing assumptions about how students learn, how credentials work, and who controls educational pathways began to crack.

In this episode of the Inside the Learning Experience Podcast, we dive deep into our 2025 End of Year Impact Report to examine how AI is being used to tackle higher education’s most persistent wicked problems.