Most AI tools are built for generic use. They don’t know your curriculum, your team’s expertise, your organisational context, or the specific conditions you’re working in. That gap, between what AI can do and what professionals actually need, is where I work.
I’m Niall McNulty, AI Product Lead at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, based in Cape Town. I build AI systems for education and professional knowledge work, do MEd research at UCT on how professional expertise gets encoded into AI, and advise organisations across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East on AI strategy and implementation.
My research and practice focus on the same problem: how expert judgement can be captured, structured, and made available to AI systems without flattening it into generic content.
I don’t just advise. I build the tools.
What I’ve built
Products
- TextbookAI – AI curriculum content generator for Sub-Saharan Africa. Reduced textbook production cost per title, and assessment item cost dramatically.
- CAPSPlanner – Weekly lesson planner for South African teachers, contextualised by school quintile, province, and available resources. Built on the national CAPS curriculum.
- Forma – AI-powered instructional design platform that encodes learning science as system constraints. A full 6-module Moodle course in under two hours.
- NiallOS – A working personal operating system for knowledge work, combining structured project memory, source-grounded search, reusable skills, and agent workflows. Read more.
Consulting and programme work
- KHDA AI and EdTech Policy – AI benchmarking and policy framework for the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, UAE
- UNICEF Digital Education Leadership Programme (DELP) – Digital leadership curriculum in partnership with UNICEF and the Global Partnership for Education
- KFAS AI Training Programme – AI training for educators across Kuwait, in partnership with the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences
- AI Readiness Framework for Schools – Diagnostic tool for school leadership teams
Published
- Contributing author, Beyond the Guidebook (Routledge)
- Contributing researcher, HP Futures Council on AI & Teachers
- Writing: Substack | Medium
Speaking
- Cambridge International Schools Day, Accra, Ghana (2026)
- School of Life Sciences, Kuwait University, Kuwait (2025)
- UNICEF Learning Pioneers Programme, Helsinki, Finland (2025)
- Baku ID, Baku, Azerbaijan (2025)
- DBE Lekgotla Ministerial Conference, Pretoria (2025)
- Cambridge-HP EdTech Fellowship Programme, Cambridge, United Kingdom (2024–)
Get in touch
I work with education organisations, professional services teams, and development partners on AI strategy, system design, expertise encoding, and implementation. Based in Cape Town, working globally.