Open source EdTech: the movement trying to reclaim education from commercial AI
A growing community of researchers and developers is building AI tools for education on open frameworks. They argue that the commercial incentives shaping proprietary EdTech are misaligned with what children need.
By Wistl Editorial · · Labs
The UK's active EdTech sector counts 1,561 companies according to Beauhurst data published in April 2026 . The vast majority are commercial enterprises building proprietary products. A smaller but growing community of researchers, developers and educators is building open-source alternatives, motivated by concerns about data ownership, commercial incentives and the alignment between profit and educational purpose. The argument for open-source EdTech is partly about transparency. A proprietary AI tutoring tool operates as a black box: it produces outputs, but the decisions it makes, the data it