Panopto's Stephen Laster: focuses on AI-driven visual and auditory-based videos, as well as learning moments
Q&A with Stephen Ruster
At Campus Technology, he followed Stephen Ruster's career through more than 20 years of senior leadership role. It is the organization that leads some of the most important directions and changes in the technology and education market, and is “Drive Impact.” He has positions at McGraw-Hill Education, Ellucian, Harvard Business School and Babson College. Recently, he was the president of D2L. Here, since I served as CEO of Panopto in May 2025, I have been requesting updates from Laster.
Mary Grash: For over 20 years, he worked in a variety of technology markets. About four months ago I chose to move to Panopto. Why is Panopto perfect for your career right now?
Stephen Ruster: That's a great question. I always look through the lens through the opportunity and organization I take part in.How do you bring what you are doing well to drive impact?“ And I did it throughout my entire career.
Panopto resonates deeply, as we have shared in our previous conversations about dyslexia. I personally learn differently, just as many worlds learn differently. I am a very visual and auditory-based learner. I actually have near perfect visual memories so I can see a lot years ago, but as a proud dyslexia, I haven't learned that well from the book.
The opportunity to participate in Panopto has come at a time when the world needs better access to education. Panopto believes that institutions can reach learners who are visually and monitored, particularly visually and overseeing learning. I think it's very important now and I'm happy you helped me influence that front.
Glash: Of course, videos have been educated for quite some time, but is it even more important to education? How is that reflected in Panopto's mission?
raster: Answer to return the conversation to a visual and auditory learner. Videos have been extremely important for a long time, but let's break it down for a minute. Panopto was born to solve truly important problems. How do you capture what happened in the classroom through video and through audio? And how do you use it to expand the classroom, or to repair it, or create content afterwards to attract other learners who were not present? That mission remains extremely important.
Furthermore, the advent of AI has made it all more scalable. We were able to do better summaries or better transcription at a lower cost, breaking down barriers to language, culture and learning style.
And now we have the appearance of Erai. I realize that not everything happens in lectures. Learning institutions have some amazing ideas that are statically captured, such as photos, text, or PowerPoint. Through Elai, you can unlock static content and turn it into avatar-driven video using feedback.
Through Elai, you can unlock static content and turn it into avatar-driven video using feedback.
Again, the problem created by Panopto to solve is how to extend the classroom in a way that utilizes visual and auditory-based learning. Is that still important today? the absolutely Deathly Nowadays, it becomes more difficult for students to reach physical classrooms for a variety of reasons, for example, confusing the meaning of AI and other forces maintaining a set of skills, leading people to return for re-education. Through visual and auditory-based learning, the ability to learn things through video allows more and more people to acquire the skills they need to succeed. I think that's pretty cool.
