Access Alliance for Education and Coraltalk Announce Strategic Partnership

Partnership expands access to scalable oral assessment technology that helps colleges and universities verify student understanding in the age of AI. 

APEX, N.C. — September 10, 2026 — Access Alliance for Education (AA4E) and Coraltalk today announced a strategic partnership to bring Coraltalk’s conversational oral assessment technology to colleges and universities nationwide. Through the partnership, AA4E will help institutions explore and implement Coraltalk as they look for more credible ways to assess student understanding, strengthen academic integrity, and create meaningful interaction across in-person, hybrid, and online learning environments. 

As generative AI increasingly challenges traditional approaches to student assessment, higher education leaders are asking a fundamental question: How can institutions demonstrate that students—not AI—are actually achieving the competencies they are expected to master? Coraltalk enables faculty to run personalized oral assessments at scale. Students respond in their own words and receive adaptive follow-up questions based on their answers, giving educators stronger evidence of whether students can explain, defend, and apply what they have learned. 

Writing can be generated. Reasoning out loud, in real time, can't. Coraltalk gives institutions evidence of student thinking that holds up in the AI era. The platform can help institutions strengthen assessment practices, increase learner engagement, and provide faculty with actionable insight into student performance—all while supporting scalable online learning models. For academic leaders, this creates opportunities to improve learning outcomes, authenticate learning, and demonstrate meaningful evidence of student achievement; for IT and online learning leaders, it provides a modern technology approach that can complement existing institutional infrastructure and learning environments.

“Higher education needs new approaches to demonstrate authentic student learning in an environment where AI is fundamentally changing how students complete academic work,” said John Hillsman, Partner at Access Alliance for Education. “Our partnership with Coraltalk allows colleges and universities to rethink online learning and assessment while strengthening the evidence they need to demonstrate student success.”

Melissa Morgan, CEO of Coraltalk, says, "Every dean I talk to is asking the same question: how do we know the student did the work? Coraltalk answers it by having students talk through their thinking, scored against the faculty's own rubric. Access Alliance knows which institutions are feeling this most acutely, and that's why this partnership matters."

About Access Alliance for Education

Access Alliance for Education is a strategic education technology partner focused on helping colleges, universities, and other educational organizations identify and implement innovative solutions to address evolving academic, technological, accessibility, and learning challenges. AA4E connects education leaders with technologies designed to improve institutional outcomes and student success.

About Coraltalk

Coraltalk is an online learning and assessment platform designed for asynchronous and hybrid education. The platform helps institutions create more interactive learning experiences, strengthen assessment, increase meaningful academic engagement, and generate stronger evidence of what students actually know and can do.

Media Contact:
For Access Alliance for Education:

John Hillsman
Access Alliance for Education
Email: john@accessalliance.education
Phone: 847-997-2545

For Coraltalk:

Melissa Morgan, CEO
Coraltalk AI Inc.
Email: mel@coraltalk.com
Phone: 647-323-7163

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