News and Insights
Thriving in Transformational Times: 4 Key Takeaways from EdTech Week 2025
October 31, 2025
As communications and marketing leaders in edtech, we were inspired by the innovation and leadership on display at this year’s EdTech Week in New York City. We spent the week meeting with and gleaning insights from edtech founders, venture capitalists, industry professionals, journalists, and leaders of higher education and K-12 institutions.
This year’s main events were held at Teachers College, Columbia University—a thematically appropriate venue that inspired a learning mindset, especially as we jostled with education students in the halls as we hustled to our next session.
The event theme was “Cut Through the Noise” — a fitting imperative in a saturated edtech landscape. As education marketers, we saw the influx of Covid funding lead to a frenzied market for edtech tools. Now as education funding reverts to normal levels, there’s more competition for new and existing companies selling to higher education institutions and K-12 districts and schools.
As edtech marketers prepare for 2026, here are four key takeaways from EdTech Week that will help position you for success and growth:
1. Partners Not Products
With a record number of products and solutions competing for their attention, educators need vendor partners who will help them strategically solve problems, not sell them one-size-fits-all solutions.
If your company provides a suite of products that solve multiple problems, you’ll have an advantage. But don’t expect prospects to connect the dots themselves. Your marketing and sales approach should anticipate the particular priorities and challenges each prospect is facing, and reassure them that you’ll help provide the specific solutions they need.
Be the company who listens first, helps diagnose, and then prescribes solutions.
2. AI Interoperability and Implementation Fidelity
Through the power of AI, companies are spinning up new products at a record pace. Some nimble startups are even using AI-powered development tools to create custom products for individual districts in a way that legacy edtech companies aren’t built for.
The subsequent volume of new offerings is overwhelming leaders who have limited time to implement new solutions. To minimize complexity, customers want the next phase of AI products to seamlessly connect to a range of other products and platforms. Interoperability will be key in the next era of edtech, so make sure you’re building partnerships and playing nice with complementary tools and platforms.
You also need to convince prospects that your solution is easy to implement and that you’ve previously seamlessly onboarded similar schools or districts. Educator turnover and understaffing mean that there’s very little time or appetite for integrating new tools. You’ll need marketing assets on hand that thoroughly explain how you’ll streamline implementation, and then live up to your promises so the relationship begins on strong footing.
3. Teachers are Testing Tools
Teachers are testing many AI tools at once and sharing notes with their peers. Educators have always been a curious and resourceful bunch, and the urgency of early Covid virtual teaching accelerated the instinct to find their own solutions. Companies are reporting that teachers are increasingly willing to assemble their own suite of tools to solve problems, often using a mix of district-approved and “rogue” tools. And when they find a solution that works, educators are eager to recommend it to colleagues.
To paraphrase one venture capitalist: “Because classrooms are changing so quickly, enterprise buyers are not in tune with what their teachers and students want and need in the classroom. This results in more enterprise-level sales happening because teachers are advocating for the district to invest in premium versions of tools they’re already using behind the scenes.” It’s important for companies to identify teachers who are already using their products and then target their institution or district for the upsell.
4. Safety and Trust are a Must
At a time of heightened concern and scrutiny, we weren’t surprised that nearly every session mentioned the importance of student data safety and security. One lawyer for edtech companies called student data security an “everyday conversation” with her clients. Prepare your sales and marketing teams with airtight materials and talking points to use when the inevitable questions arise about how your company collects and secures student data.
The education space has always been built on trust, and at a time of rapid innovation it’s important to prioritize relationships over quick sales. One college dean broke it down simply: “Be honest and transparent about what your product can and can’t do. Don’t kill the relationship by exaggerating and hoping I won’t find out.”
You need third-party validation to build trust and credibility, including earning coverage in reputable media outlets, providing relevant case studies, asking current customers for testimonials and peer introductions, and emphasizing relationship building over hard selling tactics.
Planting Seeds Will Pay Off
This challenging time for the education sector—expecially in the U.S.—is also an opportunity for edtech companies to provide value and strategic partnership to their customers.
One edtech veteran shared these thoughtful and hopeful sentiments that sum up the current state of edtech: “Our market is always in seesaw mode. There was a lot of money in the system from ESSER funding. Now there’s not as much. But we’re planting seeds that will blossom eventually. Your sales and marketing efforts are still valuable even if it takes longer for them to pay off. You want to be top of mind and have a strong relationship with the districts you’ve been targeting when they are finally ready to purchase.” We couldn’t agree more.
POSTED BY: ,
