AI In Education Innovators Identify Directions Expected In 2025

In 2024, artificial intelligence dominated discussions on educational innovation, often shifting between optimism and concern. In 2025, the focus will transition from abstract considerations of value to practical discussions about how AI in education, driven by a relentless focus on data, will personalize learning, evaluate outcomes, and provide feedback to reshape how educators teach and how institutions make decisions. The outcome will be improved student results and happier, more satisfied teachers and administrators as the promise of digital education is finally fulfilled. This has been a recurring observation among educators regarding what lays ahead for 2025.

AI In Education Will Drive Personalized Learning

Personalized learning has long been the promise of technology-assisted education. In an article from 1970, computer-based education pioneer Patrick Suppes speculated that in the future, every student would have their own personal computerized tutor, the quality of Socrates or Aristotle. The challenge has always been to figure out how to personalize things without spending inordinate amounts of time and money mapping out every possible path a student might take.

With AI, tools finally exist to dynamically analyze student learning data, deploy personalized solutions based on that analysis, and identify what additional support students might need from their teachers without requiring course authors to map everything out first. Rather than experts predetermining possible paths, the data itself can drive the course, with adequately trained, primed, and prompted AIs interacting with students through natural interfaces and providing them with what they need. This allows students to learn, explore, and make authentic mistakes without being constrained by curriculum designer-imposed guardrails.

Diana Helfond, CEO of Parallel Learning, stressed that the transformation to personalized learning is already underway: “Teachers, parents, administrators, school boards, and students themselves are craving more personalized support to match each student’s unique needs both in and out of the classroom.” She added, “It’s going to be fascinating to see what the edtech community brings to the table in 2025 and how schools embrace these tools.”

Dr. Shaan Patel, CEO and Founder of Prep Expert concurs, noting that “Education in 2025 will prioritize the unique needs of each student more than ever before. With data-driven insights, schools can customize learning experiences to support each student’s goals, learning style, and pace.”

Personalization improves the student experience and instructor effectiveness. Andrew Goldman, EVP of HMH Labs, highlights AI’s role: “Adaptive learning technologies will continue to personalize curriculum and assessment, creating a more responsive and engaging educational journey that reflects each student’s strengths and growth areas. Generative AI and other cutting-edge advancements will be instrumental in building solutions that optimize classroom support, particularly in integrating assessment and instruction.”

Getting the interaction between AI and teachers right is essential for creating a seamless student experience. Nhon Ma, CEO of Numerade, emphasizes the importance of collaboration between AI and educators: “Looking to 2025 and beyond, change can be driven through a multimodal approach that integrates video, images, audio, and interactive tools to meet diverse learning needs. Central to this mission are human educators, who play a vital role in maintaining pedagogical accuracy and fostering meaningful connections with students. By combining AI’s capabilities with educator expertise, students can receive an engaging, rigorous, and deeply personalized education to prepare them for the future.”

AI In Education Will Drive Better Decisions

With increased personalization and data collection, teachers and administrators can make more informed decisions about students’ needs. Decision intelligence—the use of AI to analyze large data sets and provide actionable insights based on the data—has the potential to shape instructor practices and enhance student experiences by identifying patterns and trends. For instance, if it is evident that a student has already mastered a subject, they might be excused from completing an assignment and permitted to progress directly to an exam. Conversely, if students appear unprepared for an exam, they may receive a tailored review assignment optimized for their specific background. Effectively implemented decision intelligence can streamline and prioritize instructors’ actions while predicting the type of personalized support that will achieve the best outcomes for students outcomes.

Fred Laluyaux, Co-Founder and CEO of Aera Technology, expects Decision Intelligence to play a role beyond mere personalization of instruction. By leveraging AI’s ability to analyze complex educational data, decision intelligence can provide institutions with actionable strategies to improve teaching effectiveness and operational efficiency. Laluyaux explains: “Over the next 1-2 years, multiple use cases for decision intelligence in higher education will emerge, leading to improved student outcomes, enhanced administration, and more.”

Dr. Joe Dery, VP & Dean of Data Analytics, Computer Science, and Software Engineering, School of Technology, Western Governors University, sees decision intelligence as the key to taking AI from curiosity to a helpful tool: “In 2025, the AI bot boom will give way to decision intelligence emerging as higher education’s true transformative force.” His colleague, Dr. Jennie Sanders, VP of Instruction at WGU, provides insights into how this might happen: “AI will be intentionally deployed to actively develop complex, interactive behavioral skills with the student. For example, AI tools will simulate one side of human interactions, such as a constructive debate on a difficult topic, and simultaneously assess a student’s strengths and growth areas in communication skills, critical thinking, and empathy.” This information will flow back to instructors to shape a student’s progression through the course.

Data analytics and AI can also address non-cognitive challenges and behavioral concerns. Dr. Kara Stern, Director of Education and Engagement at SchoolStatus, suggests: “Schools will use data analytics and AI to identify attendance and academic patterns that indicate students are at risk of becoming chronically absent.” As attendance and engagement are leading indicators of student success, early identification and remediation of such problems can have a profound impact.

AI also has the potential to enhance mathematics instruction by analyzing and supporting student decision-making. Aubrey Francisco, Executive Director of AERDF’s EF+Math program, explains that executive function (EF) skills correlate strongly with math achievement but are not yet widely integrated into math education. By leveraging AI, instructors can better understand how students approach problems and provide targeted guidance to help them plan solutions and focus on key components. The AI can also identify steps a student might take to organize their work, verifying the correctness of intermediate steps toward a solution rather than just the final answer.

2025 Will Showcase Full Promise Of AI In Education

Digital education has consistently generated a large amount of data. So far, finding effective ways to utilize this data to improve outcomes has been slow and costly. AI systems are particularly well-suited to leveraging this data. However, developing instructional mechanisms that are suitable for students while fully engaging teachers in the educational process remains a challenge. The year 2025 will reveal precisely what is possible for AI in education.