How AI Is Reshaping Education
- Jenny Kay Pollock
- Aug 20
- 6 min read
By Moha Shah Venture Capital Leader | Future of Mobility, Climate, & Insurtech/Fintech | Strategy, Innovation & Digital Transformation
Are you curious what it would be like to be in school today with Generative AI (Gen AI) tools currently in the market? Since ChatGPT’s public release in November 2022, Gen AI tools have been transforming education and many other sectors. Students can use Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT for tasks such as conducting research, drafting essays, summarizing notes, or asking questions about different topics like the scientific method. Teachers can use AI tools for tasks such as grading, testing for plagiarism, and crafting syllabi for classes. AI is becoming an influential force in education.
As with any new technology, there are both positive and cautionary testimonials to be mindful of Dr. Nataliya Kosmyna from the MIT Media Lab led a recent study to evaluate the brain activity of 54 students from Boston-area universities while writing an essay. Their brain activity was monitored using an electroencephalogram (EEG), and the students were divided into three groups: one used a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT, a second used only a search engine, and a third (brain-only) did not use any digital tools. According to the study’s initial findings, the group that used an LLM over four months performed worse than the brain-only group that didn’t use any digital tools at all levels – neural, linguistic, and scoring.
Beyond the emerging studies on AI’s impact on the brain, some technology leaders believe that Gen AI tools can be helpful in the learning journey. Khosla Ventures’ Founder and Sun Microsystems Co-Founder Vinod Khosla believes that Gen AI tools like ChatGPT accelerate learning about new topics in a recent interview hosted by Indian entrepreneur Nikhil Kamath. “Every 20-year-old should strive for this ability to jump into any new area, whether it’s a physics problem or a biology problem or a finance problem – just this ability to think from first principles and learning new areas,” advises Khosla.
A Retrospective: From the Classroom to Online Learning
The traditional classroom of my formative years comprised lectures, homework, quizzes, and exams across most subjects. If I had questions after class, I could ask the teacher, my parents, or visit a library that offered books, magazines, newspapers, and some computers. With the mass adoption of smartphones in the late 2000s, most students across many countries suddenly had to access the internet virtually 24/7 or based on their parents’ preferences of when they could use their devices.
In the early 2010s, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on platforms such as edX, Coursera, and Udemy were launched, which offered students worldwide access to digital online courses from some of the leading universities such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Oxford. Some of these platforms offered free online courses, while others charged a fee for courses.
By early 2020, the COVID pandemic forced students, educators, and non-essential workers to retreat to their homes. Most classes across K-12, higher education, and other workforce training programs transitioned from being held in a physical classroom to online within a very short period.
Today, the opportunity to learn from virtually anywhere in the world is dramatically different from when the World Wide Web launched in the early 1990s. More people around the world have greater access to the internet, and the newly released Gen AI tools are starting to impact learning, teaching, and the future of work. My perspectives on the future of work can be found in this recent blog post, “The Future of Work in the New Era of AI.”
Reimagining Education with AI
Educational pedagogy is being transformed as more students and teachers adopt Gen AI tools inside and outside of the classroom. This National Public Radio episode aired on May 21, 2025 illuminates how some professors are using emerging Gen AI tools and students’ perspectives on them.
Overall, the days of educators’ traditional workflows of giving lectures to students, assigning homework, and preparing assessments such as quizzes and exams are beginning to transform in the age of AI. Learning will likely become more personalized, interactive, and engaging. However, perspectives on using AI vary across the education ecosystem. Below are insights on AI’s impact on education from an educator, college students, and parents.
As Founder and CEO of Sculpted Minds, Neela Ranganathan tutors middle school to high school students in math, chemistry, and other subjects. She recently turned to AI tools to help her develop an AP Chemistry course. Ranganathan observed, “I recently designed an AP Chemistry Unit 1 guide where, for each subtopic, I would input bits of information and prompt ChatGPT to shape them into a lesson while adding details as needed for improved coherence and flow. This was a multi-draft, iterative process which included deeper explorations with ChatGPT as well as interim feedback from a subject expert until a sufficiently comprehensive, error-free, and pedagogically sound version was reached.”
Moreover, current college students can access the latest AI tools for their classes. Allan Feldman, a rising senior at Brandeis University, took an introductory computer science course to learn Python. The professor allowed the students to experiment with Gen AI tools like ChatGPT but strongly discouraged relying on them to learn Python well. Feldman noted, “I think AI was good at helping me identify mistakes in code or why a line was not working, and perhaps give a revised example, but not to write all of the code itself.”
Beyond using AI tools for learning, some college students like Rema Raghu are bullish that AI will help them with time-consuming tasks. "One of the common problems university students experience is the difficulty of navigating course registration and ensuring they get the best possible selections each term. An AI agent could serve as a representative to navigate any course registration system by streamlining the work to get the desired courses, and on the back end, help university IT operations save time and money by optimizing scheduling and resourcing," noted Raghu, a rising sophomore at Northeastern University.
Also, many parents with school-age kids are finding AI tools to be very helpful. Nissa Munroe, the Head of Global Risk Solutions Wide Learning Center at Liberty Mutual, has a daughter who will enter seventh grade this fall. Munroe believes that "AI is giving women of every generation – our daughters, ourselves, and even our mothers the chance to learn anything, anytime, anywhere. It's like passing down a key that unlocks opportunities at every stage of life."
As AI’s utilization becomes more prevalent, many startups are addressing challenges for educational stakeholders including K-12 schools, teachers, students, and working professionals.
The Future of Learning: Edtech Startups in the Era of AI
During my early career, I worked at Harvard Business School on strategic and global initiatives. I’ve also advised and mentored early-stage startups that have aimed to innovate in legacy industries from education to financial services. These experiences have illuminated the power of technology to reimagine education. I believe that technology can be a powerful force in education by offering learners of all backgrounds an opportunity to acquire new skills and insights. For example, I use YouTube to learn about AI topics, from improving my prompting skills with Claude to using LangChain.
In today’s digital era, many edtech startups are now aiming to transform learning with AI.
Several AI-first edtech startups are highlighted below:
Flint (founded in 2023) – an AI-powered education platform for K-12 schools
Learnie (founded in 2020) – an AI-assisted, community-driven video microlearning platform designed for deskless, frontline workers across industries such as healthcare, retail, and energy
TrueMark (founded in 2024) – a platform helping teachers prevent AI plagiarism with edit-level transparency and leverage AI as a personalized feedback tool with assignment-level customization
Learnie’s Co-Founder and CEO Pete Mastin noted, “AI isn’t replacing educators or trainers; it’s empowering them with tools that make learning faster, smarter, and more engaging for everyone.”
The Future of Education: What’s Next?
I am optimistic that continued advances in AI will transform education and other industries. AI, when used responsibly, has the power to reshape classrooms, foster personalized learning, and enable greater access to learning for people and communities globally. As learning and upskilling become increasingly important in today’s digital era, educators, young students, and working professionals can embrace AI as they continue their learning journeys. For more from Moha Shah check out her last guest post on the WxAI blog, The Future of Work in the New AI Era.
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