Innovation with Intention
AI is just beginning to grow in education, but it has guided our work at TalkingPoints for over 10 years.
We innovate to break down communication barriers, build educator capacity, and bring forward insights that lead to stronger family partnerships and better outcomes for students.
We innovate to break down communication barriers, build educator capacity, and bring forward insights that lead to stronger family partnerships and better outcomes for students.
Over the past decade, TalkingPoints has supported billions of multilingual family-school interactions - creating one of the most robust bodies of insight into what families need to support student success. These anonymized, aggregated learnings have helped power research-backed strategies, uncover barriers to engagement, and validate our tools through rigorous studies. The result: measurable improvements in attendance, academic outcomes, and family–educator relationships, especially for historically underserved communities.
We are a native AI organization, we aren’t new to innovation.
It’s in our DNA. ”
It’s in our DNA. ”
Our Innovation Story
TalkingPoints started with a bold mission: to use technology thoughtfully to transform how families and educators connect. Over nearly a decade, we have built and refined AI-powered tools that improve communication, embed family engagement best practices and coaching, turn insights into action, and build capacity for families and educators alike. For us innovation has never been a reaction to new technology trends. It has been a consistent, responsibly built foundation for creating solutions that improve student success.
A history of leading the way
Our journey reflects a commitment to using emerging technology, especially AI, to improve educational outcomes for students. Here are some of the milestones that shaped our path.
(Hover over the year for more information.)
2015
Founded with a bold, innovative mission
2017
Launched AI translation model
2019
Won Google AI Impact Challenge
2020
Reached 100M messages during COVID-19
2021
Secured first nonprofit GPT-3 license
2022
First quasi-experimental study demonstrating improved attendance and student academic outcomes
2023
Leveraged AI to study 40M+ school-home messages
2024
Launched new AI-powered features - including Message Mentor
2024
Surpassed 1 billion total messages, strengthening our insights engine
2025
Expanded AI-powered features into academics and attendance
Responsibly designed, district-guided AI
TalkingPoints takes a thoughtful, collaborative approach to innovation. We build AI features hand-in-hand with district partners, pilot them with real educators, and continuously improve them through open feedback channels.
Our platform and use of AI is designed to support better outcomes—not replace educators. By putting partnership and transparency at the heart of our innovation, we ensure AI is used responsibly, safely, and always in service of educational success.
This partnership model has helped districts reduce chronic absenteeism, strengthen family trust, and surface system-level insights that inform school improvement strategies.
Innovation for system-level impact
TalkingPoints is designed not only to support individual educators, but to help entire districts drive meaningful, measurable change. By analyzing patterns across millions of multilingual family interactions — from attendance challenges to academic support needs — we help school and district leaders understand what families are experiencing and where to target resources.
By transforming the data into actionable insights, we help districts take earlier, more effective action to support student success.
Innovation for accessibility
- SMS text-first platform design ensures families can engage without relying on smartphones, apps, or internet access
- Text-to-speech and speech-to-text features make messaging more accessible for families with literacy or visual needs
- Built-in tools turn educational terms and ambiguous language into clear, family-friendly explanations
- Multimedia captioning adds translated captions to videos so families can easily understand and engage with share content
Innovation for building capacity
Grounded in the dual-capacity framework for strong family-school partnerships, our tools are designed to strengthen the skills, confidence, and understanding that educators and families need to communicate effectively and support student success.
- Message Mentor provides AI-suggested improvements that help educators send clearer, more effective messages to families
- Simplified absence reporting gives staff more accurate information about why students are absent, allowing for earlier and more effective interventions
- Best practice tips and message templates save staff time while supporting meaningful engagement with families
- Data-informed insights that help districts identify trends and take strategic action
- Research partnerships help us analyze patterns, validate AI-driven insights, and deepen our understanding of how to support effective family engagement
Innovation in translation
- Proprietary translation solution blends machine learning and human expertise to deliver accurate and contextualized communication in 150 languages
- Educational-specific glossaries ensure school terminology, proper nouns, and words with multiple meanings are translated accurately within an educational context
- User and translator feedback continually informs and improves our algorithms
Innovation to support student success
These tools are grounded in research that shows how consistent relationships, clear communication, and positive family engagement contribute to better attendance and higher academic achievement.
- Attendance message series use positive, proactive messages to encourage regular attendance, helping students show up ready to learn
- Quick kudos and family check-ins strengthen relationships by sharing student successes and prompting connection points throughout the year
- Home learning activities connect home and classroom with quick research-based activities that families can do at home to reinforce learning and boost student achievement
Pioneering the future of AI in family engagement
The future of family engagement will be shaped by tools that are thoughtful, transparent, and built in partnership with the people who use them. Our next decade of innovation will leverage AI to remove barriers and expand opportunity for connection. In the years ahead, our research partnerships, AI advancements, and district collaborations will continue to unlock new ways to accelerate student progress by reshaping family-school partnerships—reducing barriers, improving outcomes, and deepening family-school relationships at scale. Join us as we work toward a future where every student has the support they need to reach their full potential.
