{"id":31924,"date":"2026-01-30T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T01:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hkmu.edu.hk\/oetools\/?p=31924"},"modified":"2026-01-30T14:38:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T06:38:00","slug":"weekly-ai-news-update-23-29-january-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hkmu.edu.hk\/oetools\/news-events\/weekly-ai-news-update-23-29-january-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly AI News Update (23-29 January 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-page\" data-elementor-id=\"31924\" class=\"elementor elementor-31924\" data-elementor-settings=\"[]\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-section-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"has_eae_slider wavo-column-gap-default elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-eb5fb75 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"eb5fb75\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-settings=\"{&quot;jet_parallax_layout_list&quot;:[]}\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"has_eae_slider elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-77297ae\" data-id=\"77297ae\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-118e44f elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"118e44f\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul><li>Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) skills in Singapore more than doubled from 2022 to 2025, with generative AI capabilities showing the fastest growth. A government study found that AI tools could significantly assist nearly 24% of work tasks across various sectors, prompting a national focus on upskilling. The emphasis is now on developing complementary human skills, such as critical thinking and decision-making, which are less automatable and essential for the future workforce. \ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/parenting-education\/demand-for-ai-related-skills-in-singapore-more-than-doubled-from-2022-to-2025-skillsfuture-analysis\">The Straits Times<\/a><\/li><li>Alibaba founder Jack Ma has called for a fundamental reform of rural education in China to focus on cultivating curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking over rote memorisation in the AI era. He argued that the primary educational challenge is no longer a technological divide but a gap in imagination and collaborative problem-solving skills, stating that teaching should empower students to ask diverse questions rather than deliver uniform answers. \ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/tech\/tech-trends\/article\/3341543\/teach-our-children-well-jack-ma-urges-changes-chinas-rural-education-ai-era\">SCMP<\/a><\/li><li>The Alpha School network, a private US institution, operates on a model where students in grades K-12 spend two hours daily learning core subjects through AI tutors and apps, with human &#8220;guides&#8221; providing motivational support. Promoted by US Education Secretary Linda McMahon as an innovative exemplar, the school claims its students learn twice as fast as the national average. However, its approach has faced scrutiny from experts over a lack of independent research and transparency, and reports from some parents cite student anxiety and a hyper-focus on metrics over holistic learning. \ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2026\/01\/29\/politics\/alpha-school-trump-ai-teaching\">CNN<\/a><\/li><li>The Education University of Hong Kong has launched an AI-powered mental health app, EmoCare, which is designed to support students&#8217; emotional well-being. The app analyses diary entries to generate positive visualisations, functions as a conversational companion, and provides teachers with a dashboard to monitor pupil sentiment. Currently in a pilot phase with 700 students, the app is scheduled for wider release in March. \ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/hong-kong\/education\/article\/3341297\/ai-mental-health-app-helps-hong-kong-students-accentuate-positive\">SCMP<\/a><\/li><li>The UK government has launched a programme to co-create and rigorously test AI-powered tutoring tools in partnership with teachers and the tech industry. Aimed at reducing educational inequality, the initiative provides personalised, one-to-one learning support to up to 450,000 children from disadvantaged backgrounds each year. The tools will then be available to schools by the end of 2027, positioning AI as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, high-quality classroom teaching. \ud83d\udd17 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/450000-disadvantaged-pupils-could-benefit-from-ai-tutoring-tools\">GOV.UK<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) skills in Singapore more than doubled from 2022 to 2025, with generative AI capabilities showing the fastest growth. A government study found that AI tools could significantly assist nearly 24% of work tasks across various sectors, prompting a national focus on upskilling. The emphasis is now on developing complementary human...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":748,"featured_media":31921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v17.3 (Yoast SEO v21.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Weekly AI News Update (23-29 January 2026) - Hong Kong Metropolitan University<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hkmu.edu.hk\/oetools\/news-events\/weekly-ai-news-update-23-29-january-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Weekly AI News Update (23-29 January 2026)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) skills in Singapore more than doubled from 2022 to 2025, with generative AI capabilities showing the fastest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hkmu.edu.hk\/oetools\/news-events\/weekly-ai-news-update-23-29-january-2026\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hong Kong Metropolitan University\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-30T01:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-30T06:38:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hkmu.edu.hk\/oetools\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/86\/2026\/01\/News-23-29-Jan-2026.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2730\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1535\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"AaronTao\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"AaronTao\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Weekly AI News Update (23-29 January 2026) - 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