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Good practice Imported

Los Angeles Unified's 'Ed' chatbot (AllHere collapse)

United States of America · Los Angeles · See the United States of America profile · See the Los Angeles profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 100% 7/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A flagship US district AI student-support chatbot that collapsed within months: the ~US$6M vendor (AllHere) furloughed staff and filed for bankruptcy, student data was left in question, and its founder later faced fraud charges.

~US$6 million
Contract value for the 'Ed' chatbot (5-year contract from April 2024)
Los Angeles Unified's 'Ed' chatbot (AllHere collapse)

Details

Maturity
Discontinued
Promoter
Los Angeles Unified School District
Keywords
Administration, guidance & operations, cautionary, procurement failure, student-support chatbot

Context

Los Angeles Unified launched 'Ed', an AI chatbot for student academic and wellbeing support, promoted at a major tech conference in April 2024 under a roughly US$6 million, five-year contract with vendor AllHere.

Results

By June 2024 AllHere furloughed most of its staff citing financial trouble, and in July it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Serious questions were raised about where students' data went, a whistleblower flagged privacy concerns, and in November the founder was arrested on fraud charges.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
district technology/procurement staff, vendor (AllHere) engineering and support staff — furloughed mid-contract

Conditions for success

  • vendor financial due diligence before contracting
  • data-escrow or continuity clauses covering student data if a vendor fails
  • independent oversight of how student data is handled

Common failure modes

  • vendor financial collapse mid-contract
  • unclear ownership/handling of student data after vendor bankruptcy
  • weak procurement due diligence

Commonly funded by

Own resources / municipal budget

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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