EdTech is no stranger to innovation. It's in its DNA. After all, this is the industry that took learning beyond the confines of classrooms and made education accessible to thousands, if not millions, at a time. So, it's no surprise that EdTech is once again leading the charge, this time with AI in EdTech. Even as other industries hesitate, EdTech is embracing the transformative power of AI, pushing boundaries and redefining what's possible in education.
By the end of this article, you will be brought up to speed on how AI is bringing another revolution, albeit a less conspicuous one, and is the next leap forward in how education is being imparted, another evolution for the highly tech-driven and appetite-for-innovation EdTech industry.
- The Financials of AI in EdTech
- Prominent Use Cases
- What’s Next for AI-Powered EdTech?
Squareboat’s Take on AI in Education
The Financial Side of AI in EdTech
This section is going to have a flurry of numbers, so we suggest you buckle up. For the companies who offer AI tools and development services to businesses in the Edtech industry, the statistics look promising. AI in edtech is currently growing at a staggering 38.1% CAGR and by 2033, the global market share is expected to touch 90 billion dollars by the year 2033. ( for those who don’t speak finance, CAGR stands for Compound Annual Growth Rate).
That number is HUGE, even for a whole industry, let alone just one part of it! This shows just how much impact EdTech has. After all, this is the industry that totally changed how we learn, and now they're leading the way with AI.
How is AI Being Used in EdTech?
Artificial intelligence (AI), being the next frontier of innovation, has opened doors to potentially improving the quality of education for learners. While all AI use cases are important in EdTech, the primary one is automating mundane tasks.
This might sound simple, but consider this: AI excels at handling repetitive, time-consuming tasks that don't require much mental effort. By automating these tasks, AI frees up educators and learners to focus on more creative and engaging aspects of education.
This automation, at its core, is a significant part of what makes AI so transformative. By taking care of the tedious tasks, AI allows for a more efficient and enjoyable learning experience, ultimately improving the overall quality of education.
Top Use Cases for AI in EdTech
1. Automated Test Assessment
Removes the room for bias. Also, being an AI tool gives you comprehensive insight into specific domains where the learner might be lagging behind, areas of strength, weakness, and potential for improvement. With automated results, if you’re an educator, you can better focus on curriculum design and student engagement.
2. For Learners with Special Needs
Gaining quality education is already exponentially challenging for students, and digital platforms without interactivity make it worse. However, AI plugins in existing EdTech platforms, the most important being text-to-speech for visually impaired individuals, simplify learning and make a significant impact on accessibility in education.
3. Better Language Learning with Conversational AI
For language learners who are not natives, it becomes extremely challenging to grasp the fine nuances of a language. A tutor cannot be available round the clock—that’s where AI tools help in EdTech platforms. Language learning becomes easier since the tool understands both the subject matter and the learner’s native language, exponentially improving the learning experience.
4. Automation in Admin Tasks
For all the stakeholders involved in EdTech, it is the admin folks who have benefitted the most from AI innovations. After all, a significant part of their job involves repetitive tasks that don’t require creativity. AI might not be perfect, but it surely excels at automating routine administrative work with improved efficiency.
- Enrollment and Admissions – AI,for the most part, removes the need for manual verification. It cross-checks student applications against predefined parameters, learns from historical data, and provides insights to improve admission processes.
- Scheduling and Timetable Management – AI dynamically allocates time slots, optimizes schedules based on availability, and reduces scheduling conflicts for both educators and students.
Performance Tracking and Reporting – AI automatically compiles student performance data, identifies learning trends, and generates detailed progress reports for educators and parents.
5. Personalized Learning Plans
AI complements educators by creating personalized learning plans that cover every base. Try Googling sometime—there are tools out there that evaluate a student’s performance on tens, if not hundreds, of parameters that a human wouldn't, and realistically, shouldn’t have to track in large-scale EdTech environments. A personalized learning plan gives students a realistic roadmap to improve grades while aligning with their unique learning pace.
6. Chatbots for Customer Support
Lack of patience, hard to deal with, and queries at 2 AM—the hallmark of a student, whether they like it or not. AI-powered tools for EdTech businesses have replaced the need for human round-the-clock customer support agents. This helps businesses cut costs by automating responses to the most common queries while ensuring students get instant answers.
It's Not All Smooth Sailing: Ethical Concerns in AI EdTech
Sure, AI adds a lot of value to the EdTech industry, benefitting both learners and educators alike. However, with its growing adoption, more concerns are being raised regarding the ethical utilization of AI-powered tools. Some of these have raised plenty of eyebrows and even caught the attention of regulatory agencies.
Privacy and Data Security
The most frequently raised issue of all. Many, if not all, AI models are trained on existing data. This has raised concerns about how sensitive student data is stored, used, and protected. AI EdTech tools often collect personal student information, making data privacy and security a crucial concern.
Transparency and Explainability
Many AI algorithms are "black boxes," which means it can get difficult to understand how they make decisions. This lack of transparency makes it challenging to identify and address biases or errors in AI-powered grading, recommendations, or learning pathways.
Accountability
AI beats human capabilities in speed and accuracy across multiple parameters, but the tech is far from perfect. In fact, the large language models which are almost omnipresent now are still riddled with issues. Say, an AI system incorrectly grades a test that is ‘make-or-break’ to a student’s future? Who is responsible? Establishing clear lines of accountability is essential for to make sure ethical AI development and deployment.
Over-Reliance and De-skilling
There’s a risk that over-reliance on AI tools could lead to a decline in critical thinking skills and human interaction in education. As AI progresses, we’re increasingly tempted to delegate more complex tasks to it. This has already started happening—students have become so accustomed to using AI tools like ChatGPT that they struggle to perform well in traditional, exam-based assessments.
These concerns are totally legitimate. Afterall, who wants their personal data shared with someone they don't trust?
Why Squareboat’s AI Expertise is a Game-Changer for Your EdTech Platform
We're a team of innovators with a passion for mastering the latest tech that delivers real-world business results. That's the reason we were one of the earliest companies in the market to hone our skills in AI, and after all these years, we are far ahead of the competition. We are proud to have built AI-powered solutions for our clients across diverse industries, including EdTech. These solutions include LLMs, chatbots, personalized learning platforms, automated grading systems, and AI-driven tutoring platforms, and have delivered tangible results for them.
Ready to transform your EdTech platform with AI? Book a free consultation, and let's explore how our AI solutions can drive engagement, personalize learning, and boost your bottom line for your edtech business.
Conclusion
AI in EdTech is here to stay. In fact, AI will further solidify its foothold in the industry, as trends and numbers clearly indicate. You'll find increased integration of AI in various components of both EdTech and education. With growing awareness of ethical AI use and increased government regulations, general concerns around data security and other issues will likely subside.
The technology itself will mature, but it will be crucial for EdTech businesses to adapt and adopt AI into their operations to stay ahead of the curve and maintain their competitive advantage.
Additional Resources
Gaurav has 19+ years of experience building and managing scalable web and mobile apps end-to-end, including product design, frontend/backend development, deployment, server management, uptime, performance, and reliability.
