Each time a new technology emerges, we hear familiar warnings: It will eliminate jobs, undermine expertise, or destabilize society. Artificial intelligence is no exception. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that nearly a third of experts predict AI could put teaching jobs at risk within two decades. It’s an attention-grabbing headline—but it misses the larger point.
Our level of preparedness for a future with AI cannot depend on whether we are comfortable with AI today. Technology will continue to evolve, whether we are ready or not. Like any powerful new technology, AI raises concerns—from data privacy to accessibility and environmental impact. What matters is how we choose to engage with it.
Across the country, educators are at every stage of this journey. Some are using it to save time with lesson planning; others are exploring how it can support differentiated instruction.
The results depend less on the tool itself and more on the skill and purpose of the person holding the tool and the hard questions they ask to decide when it truly adds value. A hammer can build or destroy.
Competent, research-driven teachers are not going to be replaced by AI. Imagine AI not as a substitute teacher but a classroom assistant that handles routine tasks while educators focus on what only they can provide: authentic human connection, professional judgment, and mentorship.
Research from RAND and the National Center for Education Statistics shows that teachers spend nearly 10 hours each week on lesson planning and grading, with additional hours devoted to paperwork, searching for materials, and communicating with families.
AI can help: generating draft lesson plans aligned with standards, suggesting differentiated activities for students at different skill levels, organizing digital resources, summarizing assessment data into actionable insights, or creating templates for family outreach.
Of course, these outputs still require a teacher’s review for appropriateness, accuracy, and insight. Teachers must customized them using their professional knowledge of their students, classroom context, and learning goals. The thinking, reflection, and meaning-making still belong to the teacher and the learner.
At a moment when teacher shortages remain severe in many regions and subject areas, even a half hour freed in a day can make the difference between burnout and balance. Far from eliminating jobs, AI could actually help retain great teachers by making their workload more sustainable.
When guided by educational research and the learning sciences, the integration of AI produces tangible outputs (like saved time and streamlined administrative tasks), which lead to more meaningful outcomes (improved instructional quality, more time for individualized support, reduced teacher stress), and ultimately to long-term impact (a sustainable profession that prepares students for a future-ready workforce and thriving society).
Research on AI in education is, like most research, mixed. Still, there is growing evidence of modest, measurable gains in feedback quality and teacher efficiency, especially when human oversight remains central.
But for this potential to be realized, we must invest in preparing teachers to use AI with sound professional judgment. Teacher-preparation programs and professional development systems need to evolve alongside the technology.
Too often, innovations enter classrooms before educators receive the preparation and ongoing support needed to use them effectively. Through professional learning communities, coaching, and district-level capacity-building, both new and veteran teachers can adapt as the tools evolve.
When that doesn’t happen, even promising technologies end up underused—introduced with enthusiasm, but never fully integrated into daily teaching and learning. Without proper preparation, AI could follow the path of past innovations like interactive whiteboards and other tools that became symbols of progress without truly changing instruction.
Encouragingly, some educator-preparation programs have begun exploring courses focused not just on generally integrating technology in the classroom, but specifically on leveraging AI to enhance instruction and learning outcomes. A number of schools and districts are also building communities of practice and coaching models to help teachers learn and apply a wide range of tools responsibly.
Of course, AI can shortchange learning if used carelessly. For both teachers and students, the goal is not to outsource thinking but to scaffold it. Preparing graduates who can learn and adapt to a changing world requires more than giving them access to AI—it means teaching them how to use it responsibly.
In some classrooms, teachers are guiding students to wrestle with tasks on their own before turning to AI. By using it as one of various sources of feedback, some students discover that the technology sparks deeper insights, while others choose to rely on their own initial thinking.
Both responses are valid when grounded in clear purpose and self-awareness. That begins with discernment—not just how to use AI, but when to use it, when to refrain, and how it fits into their own learning and growth. Students must learn not only how to generate an answer, but how to evaluate its accuracy, spot bias, and ask the right questions in the first place.
Of course, AI cannot replace the most human dimensions of education: connection, belonging, and care. Those remain firmly in the teacher’s domain. Teachers play a vital role in guiding students to think critically about when AI adds value and when authentic human thinking and creativity are irreplaceable.
And if history teaches us anything, it’s that predictions of teachers being replaced are not new. Radio, television, calculators, even the internet—each was once thought to make educators obsolete. Instead, each changed pedagogy while reinforcing the irreplaceable role of teachers in helping students make meaning, navigate complexity, and grow as people.
Technology can make us faster, but only wisdom makes us better. Management theorist Peter Drucker once warned that there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. AI can help us work more efficiently, but it cannot give us purpose or tell us what truly deserves our effort. Only humans can.
The real challenge isn’t whether AI will replace teachers. It’s whether we will use our uniquely human insight and wisdom to guide how it’s used, so that educators and students alike are equipped to engage thoughtfully with a changing society. That engagement must be open to possibilities and innovation, yet mindful of the costs, consequences, and tradeoffs they bring.
Not adapting also carries its own costs and consequences. What will serve us best is the courage to face what’s ahead with both curiosity and care.
