Learntec 2026: Plug Pulled?

You enter some parties and immediately feel that the atmosphere doesn't match the cheerful invitation. Sometimes you suspect in advance that nothing extraordinary is to be expected, but you go anyway because misjudgments are always possible. Surprise me – in a good way! For this year's Learntec, my previous suspicion was confirmed on-site: the (AI) air is gone, the mood has cooled, interest has declined. But why is that?

Noticeably less going on

First, the concrete numbers: According to the local regional news portal “Wirtschaftskraft,” around 11,000 exhibitors from 34 countries came to Messe Karlsruhe from May 5th to 7th. There is no official information on this on the trade fair's website yet, which may be understandable but also striking. Learntec last counted 11,000 visitors in 2022, after a so-called restart due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Before that, in 2020, it attracted the most people to Baden-Württemberg to date with around 15,600 visitors. After 2022, numbers continued to rise until 2024 (14,000), and since 2025, a decline has been observed again. Last year, there were still about 13,000 visitors from 40 countries.

This year's numbers were clearly evident on site. The usually well-frequented entrance hall remained surprisingly empty, and the enthusiasm palpable in previous years between the exhibition stands seemed subdued. The parallel conference was attended with more interest in my perception than the offerings in the exhibition halls.

Overwhelming BMI

What certainly dampened the spirit of optimism and enthusiasm of previous years is a less open market for digital education providers in the school sector. The states, which usually act federally, have now partly joined forces to have learning platforms and AI tools developed for teaching. The executing body is the Institute for Film and Image in Science and Education (FWU). By 2027, the FWU is to develop the adaptive learning platform AIS. The chatbot Telli already developed there, which is now called AIS.Chat is already usable in some federal states for public schools. Both the previous contract awards and the financing – partly from DigitalPakt funds – have repeatedly come under criticism. The goal of these efforts? To create a state educational media infrastructure (BMI) according to the exact specifications of the states. Or, as the FWU puts it, “With the educational media infrastructure (BMI), […] together with the states, a reliable, future-proof network of digital media and tools for schools is being created.” For many private providers, such as Fobizz, this means: You're out soon – we don't need you anymore.

Because Fobizz and its partners became more important in recent years due to the Corona pandemic and the introduction of generative AI for school operations and were able to grow accordingly through state licenses, they jumped into the still open market gap. The necessary distance learning gave digital learning and teaching platforms a boost. And platforms that simplified the school use of AI offerings like ChatGPT or Midjourney, or made them less problematic in terms of data protection, could also offer a quick response to changing teaching needs.

However, it is not only new private providers who are rebelling against the existing BMI plans for learning and teaching offerings, as shown in a recent LinkedIn post by Maximilian Schulyok, CEO of Ernst Klett Verlag, because the major traditional schoolbook publishers have also long since developed digital offerings. Schulyok explained last week that the Association of Educational Media, the Alliance for Education, the Didacta Association, and the EdTech Association have jointly urged the federal states in a letter to revise the contract for the establishment and regular operation of the BMI accordingly.

An analysis by Kristina Beer

Kristina Beer is an editor at heise online, where she writes about topics such as digitalization in education. Her work is characterized by an interdisciplinary perspective on technological innovations and their impact on society.

While the BMI is thus perspectively significantly narrowing or could further narrow the market situation, the DigitalPacts also remain fundamental problems. They are set up for a few years but are uncertain bargaining chips with built-in financing gaps. Digital education offerings or even just digital infrastructure are therefore subsidized more as an extra or a necessary evil for a few years rather than being seen and anchored as a permanent part of the education sector. Sustainable business is difficult to achieve this way.

The fact that fewer loud and promising digital and AI promises were made in the exhibition halls of this year's Learntec may also be due to the heated (partly global) debates of recent months. There is a general dampening of enthusiasm regarding digitality due to the debates about social media and smartphone bans for adolescents (Digital Wellbeing). And the release of ever new, immature AI models to the public makes the grand AI promises appear increasingly hollow. This was even evident in this year's Learntec Congress program, which conspicuously often dealt with health, well-being, and AI reliability issues.

Finally, Learntec has certainly lost some of its attractiveness because Didacta now covers digital topics quite well and takes place earlier in the year. Furthermore, Learntec takes place in parallel with OMR in Hamburg, and the New Work Evolution, which is held on the Karlsruhe exhibition grounds alongside Learntec, may also have suffered due to the back-to-office movements.

(kbe)