AI Enters the Classroom: Bocconi Hosts the 10th EdTech Forum
Artificial intelligence is not just transforming the way we work: it is rewriting the way we learn. And while schools and universities are trying to understand how to responsibly integrate technologies that are evolving at breakneck speed, Bocconi and Milan will become one of the main venues for international debate on the subject for two days. The tenth edition of the EdTech Forum – eloquently titled “Next step: (AI)ducation” – will bring together the heads of educational innovation laboratories from leading European universities and business schools, along with major global players in education technology, on December 4 and 5, 2025.
Created in 2016 from an idea by Leonardo Caporarello, Rector’s Delegate for Digital Learning and Director of BUILT and the SDA Bocconi Learning Lab, and David Lefevre, Director of the EdTech Lab at Imperial College London, the Forum is not an ordinary conference but a collective workshop that brings academic institutions and the market together around the same table, with the aim of “stressing” the frontiers of educational innovation and sharing what is actually working.
“AI is only a revolution if it becomes everyday practice, not conference theory,” says Caporarello. “Our task is to understand how to turn it into an ally for students, teachers, and institutions. The EdTech Forum serves exactly this purpose: to discuss without rhetoric, share what works, and identify what we are not yet ready to manage.”
The program for the tenth edition reflects this pragmatic approach. The first day, December 4, is dedicated to the EdTech market. On stage, among others, Harvard Business Impact will talk about “Case Method 2.0” in the age of AI, while Coursera will discuss its journey towards a learning ecosystem fully integrated with generative systems. Adobe will share its vision on the relationship between creativity, productivity, and new skills, followed by a presentation by the Digital Education Council on global trends linking training, assessment, and the future of work.
On December 5, the focus will shift to the “academic perspective”: how ready are universities to manage the AI transformation? Caporarello and Dirk Hovy, Dean of AI and Digital Transformation at Bocconi, will introduce the topic. This will be followed by a dialogue between Stefano Caselli, Dean of SDA Bocconi, and Luca Zorloni, Head of Editorial Content at Wired Italia, on the relationship between internal resistance and the need for innovation.
Mid-morning, the discussion will turn to the daily practice of management schools: NEOMA Business School, Imperial College Business School, Erasmus University, and Bocconi will present actual projects—from the use of AI to redesign online courses to new forms of assessment and digital assistants to support learning. The afternoon will be entirely devoted to working sessions on four critical issues: governance and boundaries of AI in universities, managing resistance, the role of students, and defining the ‘faculty’ of the future.
The Forum will close with a plenary session to report back on the groups’ findings and with an explicit invitation to ‘keep the conversation going’, because AI does not wait for academic bureaucracy.
