But are these early adopters jumping the gun and moving too fast into an unknown world of potentially biased algorithms and threats of compromised data privacy or are the countries that are slow adopters getting left disastrously behind? My first good question.
What seem to be the benefits?
“AI in education” usually conjures up images of students using ChatGPT or other ‘generative’ (another word we hear a lot) tools to cheat on an assessment task. While schools and universities find ways to counter this misuse (?) of technology, AI is also being integrated into education in other ways which are interesting. This is what I found:
1. Student Personalised learning
AI adaptive learning systems are programmes that allow students to work individually in a range of subject areas. The programs are structured to be fully self-paced, generating activities and assessment tasks based on student progress. Thus, 25 students in a classroom could be working at 25 different levels all at once with the teacher able to receive immediate formative assessment for each student.
2. Generative AI tools
Generative AI tools have already found their way into the workplace and have many different functions. A student’s ability to understand how ChatGPT, for example, works, and how it can be used effectively, will enhance their chances of being relevant in the workplace in the 21st century in many roles.
3. Teacher curriculum, assessment, and administration
Teachers are using generative AI platforms to prepare innovative lessons, enabling more activities, better data analysis, the automation of grading and assessment as well as improving time efficiency on administrative tasks. There is real mileage here!
4. Wellbeing
In the not-too-distant future, the social welfare of students could also be enhanced. Hoffman & Reid (2025) suggest that work is now being undertaken whereby thousands of hours of transcripts and research data are being used to train a platform to be an AI therapist. They infer that one day, we might be able to subscribe monthly for therapeutical support in a similar way to getting our Netflix subscription. If proven to be successful, this could overcome the shortage of counselling support and of educational psychologists in schools.
Case studies
There are a large number of case studies to look at if you want to see how AI is being applied to education. Here are two – one from the USA and one from China: