– AI Discoveries: Digital fluency for middle school AI Discoveries is a full-year middle school course that introduces students to the foundational ideas of computing and artificial intelligence — not just how to use AI, but how it works, where it can fail, and why the choices behind it matter. The course is designed for grades 6–8 and requires no prior computer science knowledge from teachers or students. The course grows out of CS Discoveries, our widely-used middle school curriculum that has introduced hundreds of thousands of students to computer science. AI Discoveries retains the flexibility and accessibility that made CS Discoveries effective (including a modular design that supports quarter, semester, or full-year implementation) while rebuilding the course around digital fluency — understanding how AI systems work, not just how to use them — as a core thread from day one. The most significant change is a brand-new Unit 1: Thinking Critically About AI. Before students open a code editor or design their first project, they investigate real AI systems: how they're trained, where bias and misinformation appear, and how to evaluate AI outputs responsibly. The AI and Machine Learning unit moves to Unit 2, anchoring the rest of the year in AI concepts from the start. The 2026 release also includes a new version of Web Lab, the course's AI-assisted web development environment, along with an embedded AI Tutor for students in programming units and an AI Teaching Assistant for teachers. AI Discoveries is aligned to the 2026 CSTA Standards and the TeachAI AI Literacy Framework. More new units of the curriculum are set to launch in 2027. “AI Discoveries reflects what we believe middle schoolers are ready for: real grounding in computer science, AI science, and data science — taught as the connected foundations they are, not as separate subjects competing for time,” says CodeAI CEO Karim Meghji. “Students who understand how the digital world works can shape, question, and create with it.” Where students stop learning about AI and start building with it AI Foundations: Designing and Building with AI completes the AI Foundations high school course, the first semester of which has been in classrooms since May 2025. Where AI Foundations: Exploring AI and CS built the foundation, Designing and Building with AI puts that foundation to work. Across six units, students learn JavaScript from the ground up while using AI as a creative partner. They write and debug real code, build functional web applications, and develop the judgment to know when AI should help and when it shouldn't. By the end of the semester, students have designed, built, and iterated on real interactive applications — projects that require genuine programming skill, ethical reasoning, and human-centered design thinking. The course is explicitly not an AI awareness experience. It is a programming course with AI collaboration embedded throughout, and students leave it having created something. Units 1–3 are available now. Units 4–6 launch on July 10. The AI Foundations semesters can be taught together as a complete full-year course, or each semester can be taught independently. “Exploring AI and CS created foundational understanding in computer science and AI, while Designing and Building with AI puts it into practice as students write code, design real applications, and learn to use AI as a creative partner they can question, guide, and override,” says Emily McLeod, CodeAI Director of Teaching and Learning. “Either semester can stand on its own, but together they give students both the technical skills and the critical judgment to build something real and to make deliberate choices about how AI fits into their work.” Completing the pathway Together, AI Discoveries and AI Foundations: Designing and Building with AI fill the final gaps in CodeAI's K–12 digital fluency pathway. Students who complete AI Discoveries arrive in high school with the conceptual foundation that makes AI Foundations genuinely accessible. Students who complete both semesters of AI Foundations are prepared for AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science Principles, or workforce pathways in fields that increasingly require programming fluency and responsible AI practice. “It’s really important to us that our courses prepare students for the society they're actually going to enter not just aware of AI, but ready to use it effectively and critically, with a genuine understanding of how it works,” says Senior Manager of Product Management Jamila Cocchiola. “That's why these courses take students all the way from foundational concepts to actually building with AI themselves.” AI Discoveries and AI Foundations are available now at studio.code.org; a free CodeAI account is required to access. Self-paced professional learning modules for both courses are available at code.org/professional-learning. Facilitator-led summer workshops begin June 8 — teachers can find available workshops and register at studio.code.org/professional-learning/workshops.