S&P Global — 03 February 2025
Daily Update: February 03, 2025
The Role(s) AI Can Play in Education
By Nathan Hunt
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The process of education can be described by inputs and outputs. Inputs include textbooks and other educational materials, instructions, and interactions with peers and teachers. Outputs include projects, tests, papers and assignments. Many of the early conversations around AI use in education focused on outputs and the potential for cheating or plagiarism by students. But increasingly, educators and policymakers are looking at opportunities to use AI to improve the inputs in education. A team of researchers at S&P Global recently analyzed the ways the incorporation of AI in education is underway and will have far-reaching implications.
The researchers pointed out that education can be slow to adopt innovations, partly due to the buying cycle for educational materials and the time it takes to retrain teachers to take advantage of newly available systems and technologies. But education also tends to move slowly because of a natural concern with safeguarding the well-being and educational outcomes of students. “Move fast and break things” is not a motto that parents wish educators to apply to their children.
Despite the naturally reactive nature of education, governments around the world have begun adopting AI-enabled technologies to improve educational inputs. There is considerable variability in terms of AI readiness in education, with Singapore, Germany and South Korea leading the way. The team’s analysis of AI readiness in education was based on factors including the percentage of graduates with science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees; the number of scholarly publications on AI published in the country; the country's information and communication technology infrastructure; and whether the country has a national AI strategy in place. The difference in outcomes will be determined by investment capacity, policymakers’ priorities, existing digital infrastructure, access to AI and computer science-related studies, and AI and technology literacy within groups. Unfortunately, this indicates that AI may tend to reinforce differences in educational outcomes based on wealth.
However, AI could also be used to enable a more virtuous education ecosystem by providing significant cost reductions and input improvements such as virtual assistants, personalized learning and teacher augmentation. This could democratize the benefits of an elite education through the widespread adoption of a multimodal AI tutor/copilot for students. The ways AI is applied to education will ultimately determine whether benefits such as improved learning and tutoring, improved analytics, and adaptive learning outweigh the risks of data privacy and security, bias, misuse and worsening digital poverty.
The private education sector has been leading AI adoption in the educational process due to deeper pockets and market demand for AI skills among parents and students. The authors analyzed data from 89 private institutions and found that 65% of the schools use AI as the backbone of their teaching method, while robotics is a focus of 13%. These private educational institutions may be early adopters of methods that will soon enjoy wider application, or they may be unwittingly reinforcing the digital divide.
Today is Monday, February 03, 2025, and here is today’s essential intelligence.
President Trump's Policies May Cast Shadow Over Green Bond Sales in 2025
Green bond sales in the US, one of the biggest markets for the instrument, may slow under Donald Trump, analysts said after the president gave notice of the US' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change on his first day in office. Instead, Trump vowed Jan. 20 that the US will boost oil and gas production, saying: "We will drill, baby, drill." The president's comments raised concerns that environmental issues might lose the significance that the previous Biden administration placed on them. This shift could, in turn, slow the issuance of green bonds in the US.
—Read the article from S&P Global Market Intelligence
Analyzing the Historical Performance of the S&P Quality FCF Aristocrats Indices Across Macroeconomic Environments
S&P Dow Jones Indices recently launched a new family of indices known as the S&P Quality FCF Aristocrats which includes the S&P 500® Quality FCF Aristocrats Index and the S&P Developed Quality FCF Aristocrats Index. Gaining insights into the historical performance of factor strategies across various macroeconomic environments is essential for risk mitigation and informed investment decisions. S&P Dow Jones Indices analyzes the performance of these two newly launched indices across different economic regimes. It also compares the performance of the S&P 500 Quality FCF Aristocrats Index with that of another Aristocrats-branded index, the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats, across the same four economic scenarios.
—Read the article from S&P Dow Jones Indices
Japan Banking Outlook 2025: Tailwinds and Tests of Resilience
Tailwinds in Japan's banking industry will likely strengthen in 2025, moderately bolstering banks' business bases, in our view. Stable growth in the Japanese economy could provide a buffer against negative impacts. And it may need to, as strong headwinds may arise due to uncertainty in the global economy, and increased volatility due to market and geopolitical risks brought about by the change of US government. Market conditions such as foreign exchange rates and stock prices will support the performance of major banks, in S&P Global Ratings’ view.
—Read the article from S&P Global Ratings
European Commission Proposes Added Tariffs on Russian, Belarusian Fertilizers
The European Commission has proposed additional tariffs on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus into the European Union in an effort to temper trade dependencies and bolster domestic industry. Under the proposal, adopted Jan. 28, several fertilizers from both countries would be subject to an added fee of Eur40-45/mt beginning in July 2025. This would ramp up over the following three years to Eur315/mt for urea, ammonium nitrate, urea ammonium nitrate, calcium ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate.
—Read the article from S&P Global Commodity Insights
Ukraine Corn Prices Surge as Corn Growers Hold Back Stocks
Limited supply from farmers and heightened competitiveness in destination markets have led to a surge in corn prices from the Black Sea region with FOB values from Ukrainian ports reaching their highest level since March 2023, marking a nearly two-year peak. Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed FOB POC corn at $225/mt on Jan. 29, up from $223/mt the previous week and significantly higher than the year-ago price of $173/mt.
—Read the article from S&P Global Commodity Insights
Next in Tech | Ep. 202: Consumer Electronics at CES
The annual technology fest that kicks off of the year, the CES conference (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show), showcased the latest consumer technology, from smart glasses to smart homes. Neil Barbour and Stefan Modrich join host Eric Hanselman to explore what made an impact and what’s happened to technology debuts from previous years. The metaverse headlines of a couple of years ago have transformed into augmented reality. ChatGPT hasn’t been integrated into any cars, yet, but agentic AI is being rolled out.
—Listen and subscribe to the podcast from S&P Global Market Intelligence
AI in the Markets (New York City | Feb. 12, 2025)
In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, artificial intelligence is a transformative force revolutionizing business, the economy and society. The disruption created by AI and generative AI presents an opportunity for leaders to drive innovation and solidify their position on AI’s opportunities and risks. Join us for a half-day event offering a balanced look at AI’s complexity. AI in the Markets will provide you with best practices, peer experiences and industry-leading research and insights on the impacts of AI. After AI in the Markets, you’re re invited to join S&P Global and IBM for a fascinating session on Quantum Computing: Opportunities, Risks and Implications for Enterprises.
—Register for the webinar from S&P Global