Khan Academy, the global nonprofit founded by Indian-American educator Sal Khan, just pulled off the biggest move in edtech history: a landmark partnership with OpenAI to roll out “Khanmigo for All” — a completely free, unlimited AI tutor for every single public school student in the United States starting January 2026. That’s 50 million kids, from kindergarten to 12th grade, getting instant, personalized help in math, science, reading, history, and more — at zero cost to families, schools, or districts.
The announcement came straight from Sal Khan himself during a live event at the nonprofit’s Mountain View headquarters on December 2, 2025.
Powered by a custom version of GPT-4o fine-tuned exclusively on Khan Academy’s 20-year library of 200,000+ video lessons and 2 billion practice problems, Khanmigo doesn’t just give answers — it teaches like Sal Khan himself. Ask it to explain quadratic equations and it breaks the concept down step-by-step with Socratic questions, drawings on a virtual whiteboard, and instant feedback. Struggling with Shakespeare? It role-plays as Romeo or Juliet and walks you through iambic pentameter. Need help writing a college essay? It coaches you through brainstorming, outlining, and editing without ever writing the essay for you — fully aligned with academic integrity guidelines.
“Every child deserves a personal tutor,” said Sal Khan, the Bengaluru-born MIT and Harvard graduate whose free YouTube videos have already been watched 2.5 billion times worldwide. “My mother was a teacher in Kolkata, my father worked for the Indian Railways — they taught me education should be free and borderless. Today we’re making that vision real for every American public school kid.”
The rollout is massive and fully funded:
- Every student gets their own account via Clever or ClassLink single sign-on
- Teachers receive a separate dashboard to monitor progress, assign lessons, and see exactly where students are stuck
- Parents can opt in for weekly progress emails
- The entire system is COPPA- and FERPA-compliant with zero data sold or used for advertising
- OpenAI is footing the compute bill — estimated at $300–400 million annually — as part of its public-benefit mission
Early pilots in Dallas, Newark, and rural Idaho showed stunning results: students using Khanmigo for just 30 minutes a week improved 22% faster in math and 18% faster in reading compared to control groups. Dropout risk in Algebra I fell by 31%. Teachers reported saving 6–8 hours per week on grading and lesson planning.
The timing couldn’t be better. With U.S. math scores at a 20-year low and chronic teacher shortages hitting 300,000 open positions, districts are desperate for scalable solutions. “This is the closest thing we’ve ever had to hiring 50 million world-class tutors overnight,” said Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez.
Indian pride is running high too. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted congratulations, calling Sal Khan “India’s gift to global education,” while Bengaluru startups threw watch parties at 3:30 a.m. IST. Byju’s and Unacademy founders publicly praised the move, with Byju Raveendran saying, “Sal just showed the world what Indian-origin founders can do when they put impact over valuation.”
Khan Academy remains stubbornly nonprofit — no IPO, no premium tiers for schools. When asked how they’ll sustain it, Sal smiled and said, “The same way we always have: generous donors, and now one very generous AI partner who believes every child deserves this.”
Starting January 2026, the green Khan Academy logo — and Sal’s calm, familiar voice — will be inside every public school Chromebook, iPad, and phone in America. For millions of kids who never had a tutor before, the future of learning just became free, personal, and limitless.
An Indian dream, built in California, given to the world.
