ShiftED Podcast #76 Navigating the AI Shift in Education: A Conversation with Nelson CEO Steve Brown

What if a 110-year-old textbook company decided it wasn’t in the textbook business anymore?We sit down with Steve Brown, CEO of Nelson Education, to talk about how a legacy brand chose to blow itself up—on purpose. From a “great bowl of vanilla” to a bold new flavour, Steve walks us through Nelson’s reinvention and the birth of Edwin, a curriculum-aligned platform built to put everything teachers and students need in one trusted space.We dig into the skills that matter most in an uncertain world—literacy and numeracy as bedrock, but also equity, empathy, and the courage to debate. For Steve, when students learn to question well and lead with understanding, societies thrive. His north star isn’t just better classrooms—it’s a measurable lift in national GDP powered by engaged, creative graduates.On AI, he draws a firm line: tool, not product. Instead of leaning on public models that hallucinate, Nelson built its own large language model trained on rigorously vetted content. The payoff? Faster development, smarter assessment, and genuinely personalized learning—without trading away trust.Along the way, we talk naysayers, the five whys, and the “humble arrogance” it takes to make big bets and hold steady when things get rough.If you care about modern learning, teacher time, and scaling what works without losing soul, this one’s worth your hour. Subscribe, share it with a colleague who needs a spark, and tell us—what would you disrupt first?