Anthology Together 24 Conference Notes

ed. - July is the busiest month for LMS user conferences, and recently Morgan and I tag teamed to attend the users conferences for D2L Fusion in Toronto, InstructureCon in Las Vegas, and Anthology (Blackboard) Together in Orlando. As we did last year with our premium newsletter On EdTech+, we would like to avoid duplicate content, and to do so we are publishing our LMS conference coverage with free content above a paywall break followed by content for premium subscribers. This post covers Anthology Together.

Over the years I have been quite critical of Blackboard, its LMS strategy, and the prospects for a turnaround in the market. Even before the decade-long rollout of Learn Ultra (take that, FAFSA), Blackboard was losing market share - the question was always how fast and not whether. Instead of focusing on the broader market needs, Blackboard found itself in a trap of Learn Original vs. Ultra, feature parity, and hoping that more existing customers would upgrade.

After the Anthology acquisition of Blackboard in 2021, I questioned the overall strategy of combining administrative and academic functions (whether there was actually customer demand for such), and I certainly thought the gosh we have a whole lot of solutions, too many to count strategy was counter-productive. Yes, Anthology’s management improved Blackboard’s product delivery timeline and improved customer service, but that was doing the same thing, just better - all the way through Anthology Together 23. And at the same time, Anthology was facing its own debt crisis.

What I saw this year at Anthology Together 24 is that the revamped executive team - driven by a CEO replacement last July - has led to material changes for Anthology’s Blackboard product line. The company (and conference attendees) appear to be past the Original vs. Ultra debates, the messaging is much more clear, and Anthology is now focused on competing with its competitors (primarily D2L Brightspace, Instructure Canvas, and Moodle) instead of itself.

Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and Centennial College is but one low-priced spoonful, but this is a revived company with a strong belief in how it can compete moving forward. I do not know whether Anthology will succeed, but I think this is good news for the LMS market, having improved competition based on customer needs. And in a few areas, Anthology Blackboard has shown itself either at the level of its LMS competitors or even leading the market.

Let’s review the changes from a broad-to-narrow perspective.

Anthology Messaging

Anthology seems to have dropped the gosh we have a lot messaging, and is simplifying its brand behind three major platforms. Now it is Learning Management System (LMS), Student Information System (SIS), and Customer Resource Management system (CRM).

Since the LMS is primary focus here, I’ll point out that the “Learn” branding is gone. Well not completely gone, it showed up in two slides. The LMS is now called Anthology Blackboard.

And better yet, Anthology has moved past the Learn Ultra vs. Learn Original trap they set for themselves years ago. What used to be called Learn Ultra is now just Blackboard moving forward. There were some light references to adoption numbers (55% of all courses now in Ultra), but Anthology did not obsess on feature parity and other discussions that put the focus on Original vs. Ultra. That is smart and long overdue.

Anthology has also taken the BbData architecture and approach and is in the process of broadly making that available across their SaaS product line, now branded as Illuminate. A major design element that came over from BbData into Illuminate is the Canonical Data Model (CDM), which creates a common data format for each major system in a way that can be combined into holistic views. And theoretically, the CDM is LMS-agnostic, meaning that a client using a different LMS along with Anthology Student or Reach can still leverage the design of Illuminate.

LMS Position

Anthology Blackboard is now much more focused on its competitors (primarily D2L Brightspace and Instructure Canvas, secondarily with Moodle) and is making product announcements clearly aligned with this focus. Consider Morgan’s coverage of last year’s event.

This year, almost no mention at all of Learn Original. The focus was all about Anthology Blackboard and its competitive position.

For example, D2L is putting a lot of effort into Creator+, its interactive content enhanced design add-on. Anthology is pushing Content Designer as a competitive offering and strongly messaging that it is included in the core LMS. A direct response.

Similarly, Instructure added Canvas Studio (née Arc) for embedded video throughout its system (instructor feedback, video assignments, etc, etc). Anthology is pushing Video Studio for the same reasons.

I am not commenting here on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the offerings; rather, it is notable that Anthology is more focused on directly competing now. Unashamedly.

There are other core LMS advances highlighted at the conference and in this press release.

Generative AI Strategy

Anthology came out of the gate last summer with the most aggressive generative AI strategy, and that approach is making inroads with clients. In fact, the AI features and roadmap from Blackboard was one of the key factors in the above decision at Centennial. This year it became evident that the new Anthology executive team is doubling down on this strategy of leading the field with AI usage. The initial AI Design Assistant is now being used at more than 530 institutions worldwide, with an average acceptance rate (where an instructor / course design accepts the AI-generated design and embeds in a course) of 45.5%. And there are new features being added to this tool.

Anthology also described the plans to integrate the AI Design Assistant into the new Content Designer tool, allowing generative AI content additions.

Questions I Have

Put all these developments together, and you see how Anthology is addressing several of the problems I have noted in the past. Tighter message, moving past feature parity and focusing on competition, and continuing to lead the LMS market in terms of generative AI usage. But just because this is a company in the midst of a turnaround does not mean that success is a done deal.

I was surprised during the conference at how aggressive Anthology plans to remain on pricing. Beyond the willingness to cut prices to win deals, many if not most of the new developments are promised as already priced into your Blackboard contract. This includes the new Content Designer and most of the AI tools. The Video Studio is an add-on tool, but that will remain free for the next year (through June 2025).

And AI is expensive, so the more successful that Anthology becomes in AI adoption, the more expensive it will be to run the company. I asked company executives about this expensive approach - cutting prices to win deals and embedding new tools (including AI) - and they were explicit that this is their strategy. In other words, this is a deliberate approach to change Anthology Blackboard’s market position, and the company is willing to invest. Which is different than just reacting to specific deals on an ad hoc basis.

I also talked to some knowledgeable sources from the investment community about how stable the company is, given its recent financing raise aimed at defusing the debt problem. $250 million is a good chunk of change, but I believe it is primarily used for debt relief and cannot sustain a long-term cash flow challenge. The investment must pay off at some point. What I heard is that Anthology now has sufficient runway to be able to make these big bets.

This leads to my main two questions after the conference:

• Will the product development - particularly with AI tools - lead to Anthology Blackboard being at the same rough level as Instructure Canvas and D2L Brightspace in more best-of-breed evaluations? I am intrigued but not convinced yet.

• Will these investments pay off soon enough that Anthology’s strategy will last longer term?

On that second point, consider Moody’s ratings evaluation of Anthology after the May infusion of $250 million.

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