TIME’s education ranking is being driven by a bigger story: AI tutors are moving from novelty to core product, while a few standout companies are proving the model can scale across classrooms and countries. Khan Academy’s Khanmigo, MagicSchool AI’s rapid educator adoption, Efekta’s Brazil pilot, and Squirrel AI’s global learning-center footprint all point to the same shift: education companies are now being judged by how well they combine AI, measurable outcomes, and reach.
AI at the center
The clearest thread in TIME’s list is the rise of AI tutoring and teacher-assist tools. Khan Academy says Khanmigo has reached 1.4 million users and more than 380 district partners, while MagicSchool AI says it serves more than 6 million educator users. That suggests the market is no longer just experimenting with AI in education; it is already embedding it into daily instruction and lesson planning.
Global scale and results
Efekta Education stands out for showing concrete results outside the U.S. In Paraná, Brazil, the company says 750,000 public school students using its AI-driven English curriculum improved their standardized English scores by 32.5 percent over two years, and the company plans to expand the program across Latin America. Squirrel AI adds another dimension, with more than 3,000 physical learning centers worldwide and a focus on adaptive learning for PreK-12 students.
TIME also separates this education-company list from its America’s Top EdTech Companies ranking, which it created with Statista and which recognized 250 U.S. education technology firms. That list was led by Duolingo and Coursera, underscoring that the sector’s leaders are being measured in different ways depending on whether the focus is global influence or U.S. market strength. Together, the two rankings show an industry split between consumer language-learning scale, classroom AI tools, and large institutional deployments.
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