Showcasing AI, at its most meaningful.
Client
Microsoft
Agency
Instrument
Services
Creative Direction
End to End Creative
Overview and challenge
Microsoft Reading Coach helps students build reading confidence with the support of AI. We set out to tell a different kind of AI story, one about real learners, dedicated teachers, and the magic that happens when human curiosity meets thoughtful technology.
Reading Coach builds on decades of literacy research to help students improve reading fluency and confidence. But even as teachers and students embraced the tool, AI’s role in education remains a source of debate. The challenge was to help educational communities understand that AI, when designed thoughtfully, can support human connection in the classroom rather than replace it.
Our approach
We created an immersive digital experience to showcase the impact of Reading Coach in the classroom. Behind the scenes, we mapped a carefully crafted user journey that blended teacher and student interviews, editorial content, AI-generated stories, illustrations, motion, and video.
The approach helped educational audiences see how thoughtful technology can empower learners and support teachers.
Showing, not telling
To demonstrate Reading Coach’s AI-powered story generator, we created original interactive stories—each paired with AI-generated book covers created using Copilot. These stories reflected the tool’s dynamic personalization: characters, settings, and levels adapted to the reader’s choices.
This custom component allowed the user to feel what it was like to use the Reading Coach tool all without leaving the Unlocked page. The result was a storytelling system that scaled quickly but thoughtfully—showing how AI can support creativity without replacing it.
Crafted by humans
For the nonfiction stories about real educators and students, we partnered with illustrator Bianca Austria to capture their humanity and impact. Her pencil and charcoal textures grounded the experience in something warm and personal—anchoring the work in human creativity before AI entered the picture.
This approach reflects our belief that some stories need a distinctly human hand—and that artistry plays an essential role in how we connect, feel, and understand.
