About

Hi— I’m Louis. I’m passionate about building AI tools that support education.

Right now, I’m building Manati: an AI tool that helps instructional designers create amazing online courses, fast (think Cursor for IDs).

Prior to building Manati, I was a product manager at McGraw Hill Higher Education where I led AI projects such as AI Reader, a generative AI tool that helps learners understand difficult concepts and promotes active reading.

I began my career as an education strategy consultant at Tyton Partners, where I advised executives on the edtech market with a focus in AI and adaptive learning. I cut my teeth on research-focused projects like Time for Class: a multi-year study for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, exploring the role of adaptive learning tools in higher education.

Outside of work, I volunteer with the Friends of the Cambridge Community Learning Center to provide scholarships to adult learners pursuing higher education.

Projects & features

• Manati AI — Helping instructional designers create amazing courses, fast.

• SmartCoach AI Sales Coach — released March 2025, side project; we made an AI sales coaching tool built right into Slack, and we piloted it with a salesperson at a car dealership. It was lots of fun hacking it together, but I learned that I wasn’t super passionate about sales training.

• Sonar Education AI Podcasts — released September 2024, side project; built a tool that generates AI educational podcasts that are made to be assigned. Right after we “launched,” Google announced their [much much better] version, and we laughed and decided to move on.

• McGraw Hill AI Reader — released August 2024, lead product manager: >1M student users. Used >30M times. I showed up to MH with a lot of excitement and this idea became a labor of love— I got it funded, and led every piece of it from design to engineering to GTM, caring an [irrational] amount about it going well. I’m very proud of the work we did and the impact we made on the millions of students who use it everyday.

Research, blogs, & presentations

• AIxED Boston, AI for Instructional Design — November 2025, presenter

• McGraw Hill, How McGraw Hill built, piloted and scaled its first GenAI solution, then showed that it works — October 2025, project lead

• McGraw Hill, Building AI EdTech: Creating Value, Not Hype — November 2024, panelist

• MaxEd, Maximizing Learning Conference: The Prevalence of AI in Education — November 2024, keynote presenter

• Online Learning Consortium Accelerate, Decoding AI Readiness: A Roadmap for Institutional AI Implementation — October 2023, co-presenter

• Education Philanthropy in the Age of AI: 3 Key Questions to Future-Proof Your Philanthropic Strategy — October 2023, first author

• Listening to Learners: Increasing Belonging In and Out of the Classroom — September 2023, co-author

• GRAILE AI in Higher-Ed Denver: How Can AI be Used for Systemic Change in Higher-ed — July 2023, co-presenter

• Investing in AI Edtech: Cutting Through the Hype — June 2023, first author

• Peering Past the Hype: K-12 Teacher and Administrator Perspectives on AI in the Classroom — June 2023, co-author

• Time for Class 2023: Bridging Student and Faculty Perspectives on Digital Learning — June 2023, co-author

• Generative AI in Higher Education: From Fear to Experimentation, Embracing AI’s Potential — April 2023, first author

• Time for Class 2022: The State of Digital Learning and Courseware Adoption — July 2022, co-author

• Time for Class 2021: The State of Digital Learning and Courseware Adoption — June 2021, co-author

Mentions, citations & awards

• McGraw Hill 2025 Change Agent Award winner: Given to product professional who best catalyzes innovation and change within the org — April 2025

• Fortune: Textbook giant McGraw Hill sees potential for AI in the classroom—and the risks — January 2025, product highlighted

• Top Hat: Harnessing Gen-AI for Evidence-Based Teaching — September 2024, research cited

• University of Wisconsin Green Bay: AIS4C: A Panel Report on AI in Higher Education from the Perspective of CIO’s — November 2023, research cited

• Forbes: OpenAI and Others Help Educators Navigate AI — September 2023, research cited

• Lumina Foundation: What does the future of learning look like? Faculty and students weigh in on new tech tools — August 2023, research cited

• Plagiarism Today: The Current State of Detecting AI Writing — July 2023, research cited

• Campus Technology: More than Half of Students Will use AI Writing Tools Even if Prohibited By Their Institution — April 2023, research cited

• Association of College and University Educators: Preparing for the Future Impact of AI on Higher Education — April 2023, research cited