Where educators
do their best
work with AI

In the AI era, anyone can create software. Playlab makes this real for education.

Our schools

Pflugerville Independent School District

Why Playlab

Build AI apps that align to your goals, context, curriculum, knowledge, and data.

Playlab is steerable: you decide how the AI works alongside leaders, educators, and learners. And with customizable guardrails, every app can be shaped to fit the unique needs of your environment.

Playlab keeps you in control – never locked into a single AI provider.

As a nonprofit, we're committed to three layers of openness: open applications that let educators learn from one another; open software that's transparent and extendable; and open AI infrastructure that lets you choose the models that power your work.

Tap into the power of collectives & community.

Playlab turns experimentation into collective effort. Instead of starting from scratch, you can borrow, adapt, and build on projects created by others.

Build in Playlab

Playlab helps you build just what you need.

Most tools come pre-packaged with assumptions. Playlab lets you design apps specific to your students, your curriculum and your goals.

Build apps that fit your practice. Create task-specific tools aligned to your content, criteria, and learning objectives.
Improve the tools through real use. Try your apps with students, gather feedback then refine them using built-in support tools.
Adapt and remix from others. Explore Playlab's library of educator-built apps. Take what works, customize it, and share it back.

What you can do in Playlab

Turn your instructional practices into dynamic, reusable tools.

Shape AI behavior with guided fields that make your expectations explicit — Background, Workflow, and Guardrails.
Refine and deploy immediately — all without coding or infrastructure requests.

Choose the model that fits the task.

Easily compare different AI models and choose how precise or creative you want the output to be. No additional licensing required.

Keep AI aligned with your instructional intent.

Attach curriculum, standards, and trusted reference materials so your apps respond with the language, expectations, and knowledge your community already uses.
Organization-wide knowledge search lets teams build shared, curriculum-grounded assistants.

Run Playlab where learning already happens.

Playlab connects to the platforms your community already uses.
Clever
Canvas
Google Drive

A place to borrow, adapt, and give back.

Access hundreds of educator-built apps categorized by use case: instructional support, student practice, equity tools, professional learning, etc.
Copy, adapt, and localize apps for your own context, then share them back with the community.

Build confidence with hands-on learning and community.

Workshops & trainings: Join live and virtual sessions to learn how to build, test, and refine AI apps for your classroom.
Playlab Fellowships: Deepen your skills through multi-week programs that blend AI literacy, instructional design, and peer collaboration.

Straight from the field

See what educators are building for (and with) their students.

Playlab enables teachers all over the world to create the tools their classrooms and communities need most by leveraging rigorous curriculum, custom frameworks, and the best of OER content.

One AP teacher's quest to give every student the writing feedback they deserve

"I wish I could give every kid lots of feedback every time they write. And I just can't... This AI tool is my attempt to be everywhere all at once."

Uncommon North Star Academy

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A New York City district uses AI to bring a bold vision of learning to life

"Saving time isn’t enough. If we’re not enabling higher-order thinking for students, we’re not improving instruction."

Consortium, Internationals, and NYC Outward Bound Schools (CIOB)

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Tim Torres teaches Bronx seniors to partner with AI for civic engagement and self-advocacy

"When you have students create their own interactive apps, now the kid has to be a critical thinker, and it's not just copy and pasting. Now you're actually integrating what you’re learning with AI to create content."

Gotham Collaborative High School

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Debating World Events? Ask This Model UN Coach for Feedback

"I think [Playlab] allows and pushes educators to be creative with their lesson planning, with the tools that they use in the classroom, and to really think about how it can be a support tool to a lot of the amazing things that you are already doing."

KIPP Chicago schools

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This Leadership Coach Reclaimed His Time With AI

"[My app] allows me to focus on mission critical things—the people of my organization and not just tasks… I can see where my quality of life is beginning to shift. And also how I've become more effective in my role."

Men of Color in Educational Leadership (MCEL)

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The Big Picture

"If AI is designed in the right ways, that are more democratic and distributed, more people can start to use AI to augment their own creativity and their own agency to do things in the world."

See Playlab co-founder Yusuf Ahmad break down how Playlab got its start, where we are headed next, and his vision for a hopeful future.

Read this story

Our Partners