6 New ArcGIS Online Features Educators Should Know About (Oct 2025 Release)

[Kylie]

ArcGIS Online, Esri's browser-based GIS, updated last night. Here are the new features I think educators will be most interested in:

1. StoryMaps management (content page, item checker, & link translated stories)
2. Share maps with a clean, user-focused interface without creating an app
3. Map authoring enhancements (finding layers to add, label placement, & styles)
4. Incorporation of AI to facilitate your mapping work
5. Dashboard data source configuration
6. New layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas

1. StoryMaps management (content page, item checker, & link translated stories)

StoryMaps are always popular in education, and now managing your stories is easier. There are improvements for finding your work, checking it is functioning as expected, and providing translated versions.

1. Content page
   When you view your StoryMaps, you now see, search, filter, and sort all your content at once, including stories, briefings, and collections. Learn more.
   
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2. Item checker
   Check the functionality of all your published stories, briefings, templates, and themes for missing links, broken media, or other issues. For example, find maps that aren’t shared with the same audience as the story, or maps that include deleted layers. Learn more.
   
   
   
   
3. Link translated stories
   Sometimes you need your content available in multiple languages. Previously, you’d author a separate story for each language and manually link them together. Now you can link translated versions of stories together and StoryMaps will display a language item in the story header. Learn more.
   
   

2. Share maps with a clean, user-focused interface without creating an app         

In Map Viewer, share your map by “Create custom link” and you’ll provide your map in a simple map viewer, supporting navigation, a legend, and bookmarks. Keep students focused on the content they are exploring and prevent distractions from all the Map Viewer capabilities. Learn more.

A map using a custom link

3. Map authoring enhancements (finding layers to add, label placement, & styles)

Show what you want in your maps, and with some extra sparkle, making sure the right information is in front of students and catching their attention. When authoring a map, you can use folders and groups to find your layers that you want to add. You can also control if all labels show on the map and how overlapping labels are prioritized (especially useful when you want to know what labels will display as part of an activity). And animated lines and polygons, as well as gradient symbols, make the data in your map sparkle and more engaging. Learn more.

My Content folder drop-down

Gradient stroke symbols to show warm and cold ocean currents

4. Incorporation of AI to facilitate your mapping work

AI assistants are available across ArcGIS to drive productivity and streamline workflows. Learn more.

NOTE: Concerns about AI? Visit Trusted AI in ArcGIS.

Of note in this release are the following assistants:

1. ArcGIS StoryMaps assistants (beta)
   ArcGIS StoryMaps assistants help you and your students craft more engaging, accessible, and visually consistent stories through intelligent, context-aware support. The Writing assistant refines your text, the Insights assistant provides metrics to fine-tune your work, the Accessibility assistant reminds you of inclusive be practices, and the Theme assistant generates colors and fonts based on your prompts. Learn more.
   
   
2. Survey123 assistant (preview)
   Instead of starting by dragging and dropping survey questions, let Survey123 assistant generates a starting point from your natural language prompt. It can also translates your surveys into multiple languages. Learn more.
   
   
   
   
3. Arcade assistant (beta)
   The Arcade assistant generates expressions from natural language prompts, allowing you to explore coding with a guide. Learn more.
   
   
   

5. Dashboard data source configuration

With the Data source panel, you can access and review all the data sources in your dashboard. Now when a layer is updated in a map, you can find and correct the references to the old layer to reference the new one. Learn more.

6. New layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas

It's the data that inspires and excites, and with this update there are new, current, ready-to-use datasets to promote conservation. They include global biodiversity and conservation hexagons, marine protected areas from ProtectedSeas, wet bulb globe temperature predictions (encapsulating temperature, humidity, wind, cloud cover, and solar radiation), a global mangrove layer from NASA, and USA impaired waterbodies.

Check out these and all the other updates to ArcGIS Online in the release blog: What's new in ArcGIS Online (October 2025).