LMS Conference Lookout - Anthology / Blackboard 2025

Blackboard’s Core Problem: It’s stuck in the past—clunky UX, poor AI visibility, slow product evolution, and eroding faculty goodwill. Its interface is considered “dated” and less intuitive than competitors like Canvas and Brightspace .

Phil: All right. So let's jump into individual vendors because that is where there is ⁓ some interesting news. The first...I'll get back to Open edX later in this episode, but let's start. The first conference is gonna be Anthology Together, which we've already mentioned is a very unfortunate name for this timeframe because Anthology is going through debt restructuring. Blackboard is actively being shopped for sale, so they're looking at one of the ways to deal with the debt is to break up the company, which could include Blackboard being its own company again or Blackboard being part of some other strategic company's portfolio. We don't know the answer, but given the fact that Anthology's position is together, we have a suite of tools and they all fit together, that messaging is going to be pretty tough. So guess I'm already answering my question of what I'm looking for then is it is unknown what the status of Blackboard is as a product line, as a company. It is quite clear that in the ratings agent, debt ratings agencies are very clear something has to happen. They cannot manage their debt and their debt holders are forcing a change.

And I was hoping for their own sake that there would be an answer. So you go into anthology together and they say, here's the answer, here's what's gonna happen to it. It's getting pretty close where it's not that, we're not gonna have an answer as we head in there. At the same time, they've been the most aggressive in investing in their own AI tools within the product line, typically without monetizing or charging extra.

Which is an expensive proposition. So I have to admit, I think that conference is gonna have the biggest immediate questions to answer. What are you guys looking for, particularly for Blackboard and what they might announce or what I should be, I'm the only one of the three of us who's going to that conference. What should I be looking for?

Neil: I think it's hard to get beyond that big cloud that's hanging over them. Sorry, I was just trying to think of a witty way of thinking about a change from anthology together to something that's more descriptive together for now, maybe. But it's hard to get past that cloud that's looming over them, really. And I think that's the main thing that...

I guess he's on my radar for understanding what's happening around that and what that means.

Phil: Are you hearing UK universities talk about that right now? Like is it a topic of talk or is it something that the analysts such as ourselves are talking about?

Neil: I think often those things rarely cut through to the universities themselves and so I don't often hear that and I would say that even in relation to some of the travails of OPMs as well actually there's sometimes I've had conversations assuming that people would be aware of certain things and they're not so I don't think that's been a big thing in the UK and if anything you know the thing that I've seen the most of in terms of institution activity has really been kind of renewals with Blackboard recently so I think

I think that's the big thing because I think in the past maybe 12 months ago we would have been talking a bit more about kind of AI features. Maybe we'll get on this in terms of a more general point, but I feel like there's a bit more of kind of AI feature consolidation going on at the moment. so I, sorry, consolidation's not the right, consolidation in terms of ⁓ consolidation of AI features.

Phil: consolidation between vendors?

Neil: than going further and progressing and developing more and more features. I think there's been a there's been a there's a flurry of activity across the different vendors in different ways and actually just seeing things like you know Blackboard talking a bit more deeply about their AI conversation tool rather than the next new thing that's what I mean essentially. So that's kind of where I'm at in terms of

Phil: ⁓ okay.

Neil: I just think that's such a big potential story that it's hard to get beyond that and I've not seen lots of stuff product wise across the piece that makes me think, well I'm looking for this or looking for that. I you're always looking for impact. I suppose around some of the things that they've done in the past and the way that they've kind of evolved the product in the past, you're kind of looking for impact. But , for me it's the kind of question mark over blackboard that's the big thing.

Phil: Although I would say before we go to Morgan, what you're describing and beyond the cloud of what's happening with their debt, their adoption is, I think, you're implying is if they're consolidating on existing features, then one of the biggest questions is more and more they're going to need to show usage that colleges and universities are using these tools in a meaningful manner. So that's something to watch for. Morgan, what are your thoughts on that?

Morgan: So one, I hope this is the last conference in a long time that we get to go, you get to go to Las Vegas. I think Las Vegas needs to be done as a conference venue just to answer a trivial question first, but an important one for me. But secondly, I want to see where they're going next with the AI. I mean, they were first out the gate. They approached it in a much more comprehensive sort of way than the other places, but like, are they going to kick on?

and go to a next thing. Because especially last week or the week before when you were telling me about the Google meeting that you were at for the first time, I had also been at Instride Impact Conference and Lev Gonick was one of the keynotes there. But just talking about the vision for ASU in terms of the LMS and AI there was very different from what I've heard from vendors. So I want to see if they've evolved into what we're starting to see from Google and from the ASUs of the world or is it going to be stuck sort of tweaking some of those sort of fairly nice but fairly humdrum kinds of things that that they're doing so that would be sort of one thing. The other one is is and this is a particular interest of mine and maybe not broadly shared but about the continuing education and non-credit market. You know, that's one thing I'm going to be looking at extensively with Instructure and D2L, but Blackboard or Anthology actually has all the bits in place, but they just don't talk about it. And it's an opportunity that I think is lost as it is almost as much as it is for Moodle, which also doesn't talk about it. I, you know, those are sort of some of the things off the top of my mind.

Neil: , if I can jump in there, I think that that's some really interesting points there. And I think there's some general themes there. mean, the continuing education short course thing is really front of mind for me at the moment. And I think I think that's sort of what I think about in terms of new new business, I suppose, in a way we kind of talking about the kind of university side of things. But I kind of think about sort of themes and it is that is one theme in terms of kind of generating kind of new business.

new activity and I think the other element of that, which we might get into later, how much the UK, the US are as big a deal as emerging and fast growing international markets too. But , that's a slightly different point.

So here's one idea, armchair product management that we're doing. So we can say whatever we want. We don't have to develop. But I've, from day one when Anthology bought Blackboard, you know, campus management was the core SIS. And I said, this just doesn't make sense. It's a...

if you make the assumption that because a school purchases their SIS from one vendor, they'll also want to buy their LMS or vice versa, just, strategy that didn't work. However, in the non-credit market, there's this opportunity, and I think we're all talking about it, they have course registration for technology. They have CRM, technology to communicate with all kinds of vendors, not just matriculated student vendors with students. You have the LMS. Why have they never just had a standalone non-credit package that just you don't have to use the campus, well what used to be called, you don't have to use anthology student, but this standalone mini package will get you going and non-credit in a coordinated fashion. They've never, maybe they thought of and they haven't done it, but...

Morgan: Well two years ago in an analyst meeting I did ask about it and they seemed surprised. No, we could do that.

Neil: I think that's so interesting talking about this because in the UK I see a lot of, ⁓ maybe a lot is to overstate it, but I see a decent amount of activity around those types of products now. And having just done a massive piece of work looking at that across UK hair education, the infrastructure behind existing offers is, how can I be polite, is pretty desperate.

Morgan: It's an area where there's a massive amount of pain on the part of customers.

Neil: absolutely. And I think that's interesting to juxtapose with what we've been talking about AI features, because there's part of me that thinks, , I'm really interested in a new innovative approach and to take things forward and to really develop the product. But also, part of me thinks, well, to an extent, what's the incentive for the company? Because I think on another side of the coin, am I?

If I ask myself, am I really seeing lots of innovative AI usage in higher education pedagogy? I may be missing something, but the answer to that in general is no. And therefore, if AI product features cost, what is the incentive for me as a business to go in that direction when on the flip side, I'm seeing enough signals of institutions and problems on the non-credit side of things? where there may be an opportunity. I think that's an interesting tension that's in the market as well.

Phil: I think you're arguing that we should be making this market even more boring. Take away the one sexy aspect of AI.

Neil: Well, I know, but I think that's an interesting strategic conundrum because we talked about the fact that actually what AI does is it gives a lot more power and agency into hands of students who are not necessarily looking for institutions to supply tools that they can use. They might be.

the need might be, and I'm speculating a little bit more, the capability to kind of think about how they use those tools in study in a way that's productive. So actually, if I'm running an LMS company, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think about a strategy that is maybe more conservative around that front. I'm not saying that that's what they should do, or that's what I would do, but I think that's a reasonable discussion to have given where we're at.

Morgan: LMS companies need to repress their inner squirrel because the squirrel in them comes out too awful. know, the dog chasing the squirrel is like, AI! You know, something else.

Phil: But aren't they partially doing that because their customers are talking about squirrels even if they're not, or they're talking about acorns even if they're not using acorns? Isn't that part of the issue as well?

Morgan: I think it is, but they need to really work with their customers to explain that, we've got to solve these other problems, you know, and really work with them around that rather than pandering to it. And in the early days of Instructure, we used to see them doing that. It's like, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to solve this problem. And so it can work, I think.

Neil: I think it also is interesting around perception because I think we talked about this when we spoke about AI in the past. But for me, innovation isn't creating a new AI feature that no one uses and has no impact. Innovation for me is a lot more.

using AI to solve a reoccurring or common problem in a way that just reduces loads of friction and actually makes people think, great, this is really actually useful. And I think just going back to what we talking about earlier, the ways in which the new banking apps have done that, I think has been an example of a product in like another realm that actually I can think of a few products that make me think, ⁓ this is actually really good now.

This has actually really solved the problem or I can just kind of it makes my life a bit easier and so I think it also depends how you how you gauge and think about innovation and I think it's

Phil: So this gets back to the sexy spreadsheet usage that I mentioned, Morgan. That saved me so many hours with a one-sentence prompt, and it still is stunning to me how useful that was.

Neil: Can I just say that's probably the first usage of those two words together?

Morgan: sexy spreadsheet. I did

Phil: that might be true.

Morgan: actually manage to find a product where you can buy spreadsheets, so spreadsheets that look like spreadsheets, and I threatened to buy Phil that for his birthday. But then he pointed out that those were Google spreadsheets and he prefers Excel.