Over the summer about 2,000 schools got early access to brightwheel AI. The questions they asked most were "Are my room ratios ok right now?", "Who is clocked in right now?", "Pull up my active roster," and "Which families aren't enrolled in autopay?"
Brightwheel AI answers questions like those using the information already in your account: billing, enrollment, attendance, ratios, rosters, staff, and family contacts. You type the question the way you'd ask a coworker and it goes and looks. We built it because the information was already in brightwheel, but getting to it meant running a report, then another one, then doing the math yourself.
Answering questions is one part of brightwheel AI. Spotlight is the proactive side—think of it as an office assistant who’s always one step ahead. It surfaces items that may need your attention right on your homepage, like a family behind on tuition, a missing checkout, or a staff certification about to expire. You decide what to do next.
A lot of software is adding AI right now, and much of it is described as a new employee that answers the phone, sends the messages, and handles work while you're busy. We think there's real value in AI that can take work off a director's plate, and we're building toward it. Where we differ is in how we get there and who stays in charge along the way. For a closer look at what AI in child care actually looks like today, from the questions directors are already asking to what the research says, see our guide to AI in childcare management.
You stay in charge
Brightwheel AI can't send a message, mark an invoice paid, or update a record. For now it answers questions and points you to what's worth a look, and that's a deliberate choice about who should be making decisions at your school. You know your families, your staff, and your classrooms, so the calls about what happens next should stay with you, and the assistant is most useful when it helps you get to those calls faster.
Starting with answers also gives you time to get a feel for how it fits into your day and where it helps most, before it does anything on your behalf. We're building toward an assistant that can take on some of the routine work, and the principle behind it won't change: you decide what it can do, and you approve the work it handles for you. It's your school, and you stay in charge.
It only sees what you see
Brightwheel AI is limited to your account and your permissions. If a record isn't visible to you, it isn't visible to the AI, and your school's data is never visible to another school.
That matters because brightwheel holds information about children and families. Your school has already decided who can see what, and adding AI shouldn't change those choices.
AI is always your choice
Anywhere you see brightwheel AI, you choose whether to use it. We understand that some people aren’t comfortable using AI in any form, and nothing in brightwheel will require it.
If you choose not to use it, brightwheel will continue to work the way it does today. Every report and page the AI draws from will still be available for you to use directly.
This is a starting point
What's live today is the first version, built around the questions we heard most from schools during early access. The fastest way for it to get better is to hear from you, so when an answer isn't what you needed, give it a thumbs down and tell us what was off, right in the chat. If you ask something it can't answer yet, it will point you to the place in brightwheel where you can find it.
Early-access schools shaped what brightwheel AI can do today, and the schools using it this fall will shape what comes next. We built brightwheel for the people running these programs, and you're the ones who'll tell us whether this is working.
Where this goes
The version of AI we're building toward is one where the director is still the director. It answers faster than a report, explains what brightwheel flags, and eventually handles routine work you've approved. What it doesn't do is make decisions about your school or the children in it, because those have always been yours to make and we don't see a reason for that to change.
