Building AI Policy Pathway

Innovation rarely follows a linear path. It often begins with a placeholder idea, takes a few messy turns, and transforms into something meaningful. That’s exactly what’s happening with our project, now called AI Policy Pathway.

From Placeholder to Purpose
During this meeting, Luke brought up a great point about the need for questions that lead to answers that the educators are seeking. The team felt that we are at the critical point of being able to deliver that to our target audience.

Designing with Integrity: Grammarly as a Model
Luke suggested that rather than generating a wall of text, the tool’s output should feel more like Grammarly, where each section is not only readable but also traceable back to source material. While this feature will take technical work, it’s where we’re heading.

In the short term, we’re focused on better prompt engineering to get to the final product quicker. Our current system uses one overarching message to generate entire policy documents. But as Luke pointed out, this approach sacrifices quality. The future version will be modular, tailored to the user’s role and context. We’ll also implement a second pass to ensure that all the pieces are logically connected and free of contradictions.

The Moonshot: AI That Cites Its Sources
Luke also suggested that we should build a tool that cites its sources, pulling directly from the documents we’ve reviewed, which will bring real credibility to the tool’s suggestions. The team recognized this will take a lot more technical skills, but they agree with the need.

To get there, we’ll explore Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), a technique that lets the model “read” smaller, digestible chunks of documents instead of being overwhelmed by entire files. This keeps costs down, respects token limits, and improves reference accuracy.

Naming the Project: Finding Our Identity
Because we felt that the project was in good place, we wanted to brand our project. After consulting a few different LLMs to come up with a name that we liked, we landed on a name that captures both purpose and humility: AI Policy Pathway. We wanted to choose a name that embodied this as a  starting point not the final destination. We purchased the domain for it, and we plan to launch the site at some point. 

ISTE Competition Entrance
I let the students know that I would be entering the project into the ISTE Competition, and the need to meet the April 18 competition deadline .

A Culture of Thoughtful Innovation
What struck me most in this meeting was Luke’s emphasis on thoughtful AI, a tool that doesn’t do the thinking for you, but instead invites deeper engagement. In his words, “We want a starting point, and we want everyone who uses this to practice their own critical thinking.”

It’s this mindset that sets our team apart. We’re not building just another AI tool. We’re designing a pathway. An entry point for smarter, more grounded education policy. And with our amazing students leading the way, I have every confidence we’ll get there!