Canvas AI Productivity Tools
Are you using any of Canvas’ AI productivity tools yet? Canvas has been rolling out new AI tools throughout the past 6 months. The Academic Technology Center regularly reviews these tools and does not enable them by default in your course site. AI Features in Canvas are OPT IN only at this time. While they are not automatically enabled in your course site, you can still try them out at your discretion.
Canvas has named their suite of tools, “IgniteAI,” so look for those items in your Canvas site under Settings > Feature Options if you choose to enable them in your course site.
AI Security Review: Instructure (Canvas)
- The AI models used in Canvas are not trained with user data.
- User data is not stored or reused by the models.
- The AI features do not intentionally send personally identifiable information (PII) to the model. However, PII in discussion replies may be unintentionally sent to a model.
- Instructure provides “AI Nutrition Facts” for each of their tools that you may review before committing to using them.
Want to try but not buy?
You may request a “sandbox” site to experiment with any new tools or emerging technologies from the Academic Technology Center using this form.
Available Tools at WPI (as of January 2026)
IgniteAI Quiz Question Authoring – In New Quizzes, instructors can now use AI to generate quiz questions based on course content.
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IgniteAI Discussion Summaries – By clicking the Discussion Summary button on the Discussions page an AI based summary will be generated. The user can add a custom prompt for the AI to focus on. Instructors can quickly understand how the conversation is going in a Discussion without the need of going through all replies.
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IgniteAI Translator – Students and teacher have the option to translate a discussion which will show both the original and the translated version of replies and discussion topic.
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IgniteAI Search – AI Search Powered by semantic algorithms allows faculty to quickly locate relevant content and is limited to use within each course, cannot search across courses. Allows faculty to quickly locate course pages, discussions, or assessments to share with students and locate content to avoid duplication of efforts.
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IgniteAI Video Caption Editing – The caption editor in Canvas Studio can filter for showing blocks with suspected inaccuracies to ease the load in reviewing videos for accessibility issues.