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Canvas IgniteAI Overview

 

Here is an overview of the IgniteAI features developed by Instructure for the Canvas LMS. Please note that many of these tools are still in development and may involve additional costs.

Included in Canvas

The following AI tools will be provided at no additional cost in Canvas.

Translations for Discussions, Inbox, and Announcements break down language barriers so every learner can fully participate. It interprets content with contextual awareness to make communication clearer for multilingual classrooms. This more inclusive experience means that students can engage confidently, and educators won’t need to manually translate or modify content. 

 

Smart Search is a feature of Canvas that is currently in development.  Leveraging semantic algorithms and AI, the new Smart Search feature understands the context of queries, providing more accurate and relevant results without the need for traditional boolean operators or other search tools.   This approach is an improvement over traditional keyword-based searches, and will enable users to swiftly and efficiently navigate the vast array of educational resources available on Canvas.

Question authoring assistance helps educators create high-quality assessments without starting from scratch. By drawing on course materials and academic standards, it generates draft questions that provide you with a strong foundation to build upon, while still maintaining control over the final content. The feature lightens the load of quiz creation, reduces repetitive work, and makes it easier to deliver assessments that measure the right skills and concepts. This feature will also be made available in Mastery. 

Free through June 30, 2026

These AI tools may incur additional costs in the future.

 IgniteAI Agent is Instructure’s education-first AI offering, built directly into Canvas. It’s designed to help educators save time, surface insights, and personalise instruction without giving up control.   This isn’t a chatbot added to the side of a platform. Instead, IgniteAI is a coordinated ecosystem of AI-powered features and trusted partner integrations surfaced exactly where educators need assistance. It helps institutions streamline workflows, improve teaching and learning experiences, and manage AI use with confidence.   

  • Availability: System-wide access for administrators and instructors.

You can now provide more timely and meaningful feedback by generating clear, consistent rubrics based on assignment details. Instructors can skip tedious setup work and focus on the most impactful parts of assessments while maintaining full control over the final criteria and scoring. Note: To enable this feature, you must also have Enhanced Rubrics enabled. 

Insights for Discussions allows educators to understand the quality and relevance of student conversations quickly. This feature evaluates the alignment of student comments with the original prompt and gauges the strength of engagement. As a result, instructors can quickly spot replies needing follow-up, identify emerging themes or misunderstandings, and pinpoint students who may require additional support. By surfacing the most critical information, discussion insights save time and enable educators to guide richer, more meaningful classroom dialogue, with streamlined targeted feedback possible via SpeedGrader.

Grading Assistance for SpeedGrader helps educators move through open-ended assignments faster while keeping them firmly in charge of final decisions. It drafts feedback and suggested scores, giving instructors a clear starting point they can review, edit, and personalize. Instead of spending hours writing repetitive comments, you can focus on the moments that require deeper insight and human judgment. The result is more timely, consistent feedback for students and more time for instructors to concentrate on teaching and support.

Coming Early 2026