AI Ready School CEO Chiranjeevi Maddala Advances K‑12 AI Ecosystem

Chiranjeevi Maddala, co‑founder and CEO of AI Ready School, says the rapid spread of large‑language models has left K‑12 classrooms unprepared. He argues that schools must shift from teaching memorization to teaching students how to learn alongside AI, and his startup is creating a human‑first, AI‑next ecosystem that supplies tools, curricula and ethical frameworks for teachers.

At the ISTE 2026 conference, educators and ed‑tech leaders including Dr. Jeremy Owoh, superintendent of the Jacksonville North Pulaski School District and ISTE+ASCD board president, Tony Frontier, author of *AI With Intention*, and Todd Brekhus of Renaissance Intelligence discussed how intentional AI integration—collaborative planning, teacher‑led adoption, and student‑centered use—outperforms reactive detection approaches. The panel highlighted that roughly a quarter to two‑thirds of students already use AI for schoolwork, underscoring the urgency for structured, supportive AI programs in schools.