GenAI Studio: News, Tools, and Teaching & Learning FAQs
These sixty minute, bi-monthly sessions – facilitated by Technologists from the Learning Technology Innovation Centre (LTIC) – are designed for faculty and staff at UBC who are using, or thinking about using, Generative AI tools as part of their teaching, researching, or daily work. Each week we discuss the news of the week, highlight a specific tool for use within teaching and learning, and then hold a question and answer session for attendees.
They run on Zoom on Wednesdays from 1pm – 2pm and you can register for upcoming events on the CTLT Events Website.
News of the Week
Each session we discuss several new items that happened in the Generative AI space over the past 14 days. There’s usually a flood of new AI-adjacent news every week – as this industry is moving so fast – so we highlight news articles which are relevant to the UBC community.
This week in AI brought significant developments across policy, research, education, and safety. Anthropic announced that its Claude chatbot may now train on user conversations with consent, while Tencent unveiled its R-Zero framework, which allows large language models to train themselves without human-labeled data. UX expert Lyndon Cerejo emphasized that effective prompting is best seen as a design practice, blending creative briefs with conversational flow. At UBC, a series of upcoming sessions will explore how generative AI tools are reshaping teaching and learning, from creating course materials to understanding evolving model capabilities. On the policy front, Microsoft reaffirmed that U.S. law overrides Canadian data sovereignty, while Canada deepened its investment in Cohere to strengthen domestic AI leadership. Meanwhile, OpenAI faces escalating scrutiny after a teen’s death was linked to ChatGPT, prompting the company to promise new parental controls. Finally, for the tool of the week, Google’s “Nano Banana” image model was demonstrated with its fast, precise editing tools.
Here’s this week’s news:
Anthropic Updates Policy: Claude Will Train on Chat Data with Users Consent
Anthropic has updated its terms to allow its AI assistant, Claude, to be trained on users’ chat conversations only if users opt in. The company says that user information will be retained for 5 years if users opt in, and continue keeping information for 30 days for those who don’t. Anthropic says that sensitive data will be filtered through “a combination of tools and automated processes,” without sharing information with third parties.
Tencent’s R-Zero Develops a New Framework for LLMs to Train Themselves
Tencent researchers released R-Zero, a new training approach where two versions of a language model – one generating tasks and the other solving them – iteratively challenging one another, improving themselves without any human-labeled data. Experiments show that the technique improves reasoning performance and could reduce the complexity and cost of training advanced AI.
Prompting Is A Design Act: How To Brief, Guide And Iterate With AI
Lyndon Cerejo, a UX design leader with over 25 years of experience, describes prompting AI as a blend of creative briefing and conversational design. By defining clear roles, goals, context, tone and expected output, and refinement the flow of tasks, users can achieve stronger, and more reliable results.
Read the Full Article Here
UBC’s Generative AI Studio Deep Dives
GenAI Studio Deep Dives are hour-long online sessions, each focusing on a distinct aspect of using GenAI tools in teaching and learning. The sessions are roughly every other month, during the last Generative AI Studio of the month.
Learn More about GenAI Studio Deep Dives
Upcoming Session on Emerging GenAI Tools Offered by UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT)
On October 2nd, 2025, CTLT will hold an online session exploring the rapidly evolving world of generative AI, discussing new tools for research, video creation, and reasoning, and considering their impact in education.
Upcoming Session on Creating Teaching Materials with Generative AI
On September 23rd, 2025, UBC’s CTLT will host an in-person “GenAI Maker Session,” showing faculty how generative AI, including ChatGPT, Claude, Google LM, and AITutor Pro, can be used to create teaching materials like case studies, lesson plans, rubrics, visuals, and videos.
Register for the Event Here
Microsoft Says U.S. Law Overrides Canadian Data Sovereignty
A Microsoft representative confirmed that the U.S. CLOUD act could mean Microsoft can share data with U.S. authorities even if the data is stored in Canada, effectively bypassing Canadian data sovereignty. This raises concerns about data hosting and privacy for Canadian individuals, organizations, and the government using Microsoft, or US-based products.
Read the Full Article Here
Canada Partners with Cohere to Accelerate World-leading Artificial Intelligence
Canada has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Cohere, a Canadian AI company, to bring AI innovations into government services and strengthen domestic AI capabilities. The agreement supports research, data sovereignty, and economic leadership through responsible AI adoption.
Read the Full Article Here
Government of Canada Finalizes Investment to Support Canadian AI company Cohere
Earlier in March 2025, Canada finalized a federal investment of up to 240 million dollars to support Cohere’s 725 million dollar project, building a domestic AI-focused data center. They hope to enhance national compute capacity, and reinforce AI capabilities in Canada.
Read the Full Article Here
Family Sues OpenAI After Teen’s Suicide Linked to ChatGPT Sonversations
The parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, claiming ChatGPT encouraged their son’s suicide through discussing methods and drafting a goodbye note for his parents. OpenAI has since acknowledged shortcomings in its safety systems during prolonged conversations, and is working on stronger protections.
Read the Full Article Here
OpenAI to Launch ChatGPT Parental Controls Within a Month After Concerns Regarding Teen Safety
OpenAI announced it will roll out parental controls for ChatGPT within the next month to let parents monitor and manage teens’ AI usage. This includes linking accounts, managing ChatGPT’s responses, disabling memory or chat history features, and receiving alerts if acute distress is detected.
Read the Full Article Here
Tool of The Week: Nano Banana: Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash Image Model.
What is Nano Banana?
Nano Banana is the nickname for Google’s Gemini 25 Flash Image model, an AI tool praised for fast, consistent image editing and generation.
How is it used?
It is currently accessible through Google AI Studio, where users type in natural-language prompts describing what they want to change or generate in an image. The model then applies those edits or produced a new image.
What is it used for?
Nano Banana is mainly used for creative image editing and generation, such as modifying photos, designing graphics, or producing new artwork.
Questions and Answers
Each studio ends with a question and answer session whereby attendees can ask questions of the pedagogy experts and technologists who facilitate the sessions. We have published a full FAQ section on this site. If you have other questions about GenAI usage, please get in touch.
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Assessment Design using Generative AI
Generative AI is reshaping assessment design, requiring faculty to adapt assignments to maintain academic integrity. The GENAI Assessment Scale guides AI use in coursework, from study aids to full collaboration, helping educators create assessments that balance AI integration with skill development, fostering critical thinking and fairness in learning.
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How can I use GenAI in my course?
In education, the integration of GenAI offers a multitude of applications within your courses. Presented is a detailed table categorizing various use cases, outlining the specific roles they play, their pedagogical benefits, and potential risks associated with their implementation. A Complete Breakdown of each use case and the original image can be found here. At […]