Teachers are at the core of every classroom and at the forefront of technological changes across education. Here's why teachers will keep shaping the future in the age of AI.
Author: Jen Cooper
Love it, hate it, or try to ignore it, AI is reshaping how and what students learn as well as how teachers go about the work of teaching.
And this has enormous implications for our collective future—how we interact with technology, the world around us, and one another.
Teachers see first hand and every day the promises AI makes and the effects it has on young brains. That makes teachers uniquely qualified to shape the way kids interact with AI and to help set the tone for the role we allow the technology to play in our lives, now and in the future.
In this article, we’ll look at two major facets of a teacher’s role when it comes to artificial intelligence: How teachers help students navigate AI and how teachers navigate the tech themselves.
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini… it seems a new AI tool pops up every week promising everything from eliminating boring administrative work to increasing personal wellbeing and boosting creativity.
What AI can and can’t do changes by the day, but one thing is certain—the various AI programs make grand promises about making our lives easier and better, something extremely tempting to busy teachers and students.
Students might want to use AI to conduct research, revise their writing, solve advanced math formulas, create presentations, and brainstorm project ideas. Teachers may want AI to help develop new lesson plans, differentiate curriculum for student learning differences, or draft parent newsletters.
But can the tools deliver? Is what they deliver what we really want? What are the personal tradeoffs when we let AI do the work for us? And are the benefits worth the environmental and societal costs?
These are exactly the questions teachers are grappling with as AI enters the classroom.
Before we dive into a teacher’s role in answering these questions, let’s dispense with the biggest question. And here’s the answer up front: No, AI will not replace teachers.
In conversations about AI and jobs, we hear two refrains: AI will make work more efficient and effective for workers, or AI will replace workers entirely. Of course, the reality isn’t so black and white.
While automation has changed the workforce for centuries, replacing some workers (like switchboard operators and weavers) and changing the nature of other work (like mechanics and astronomers), some professions have stood the test of time, requiring a human presence that technology has never been able to duplicate.
Health care, farming, skilled trades and teaching are chief among these. Many reports cite these professions as least likely to be automated or replaced. In one calculation based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the O*NET Program, most teaching positions have a less than ten percent risk of automation.
Strong teachers bring a human element that can’t be replaced—they inspire, empower, counsel, connect and guide.
If the pandemic taught us anything about the importance of teachers, it’s that their presence is essential to student learning, offering much more than a lesson plan and homework. When learning went online and tech programs replaced in-person learning, students suffered and learning suffered.
Teachers do so much more than deliver curriculum. They connect with students, respond in real time to their moods and needs, revise lessons on the fly, group students and regroup them to respond to emergent needs. They offer encouragement and guidance in micro-moments throughout the school day and they open their doors for students' spontaneous questions and impromptu meetings.
These connections simply can’t be replicated through tech. And they aren't extraneous to learning—they provide the very conditions for that learning.
In short, teachers have many roles in their school communities, serving as leaders, mentors, career navigators, and active listeners, all roles that help students develop socially, emotionally and academically.
Perhaps the most critical role teachers will play in the age of AI is to help shape how students interact with the tools.
Opinions differ widely about what that might mean. Some teachers embrace the tech with students, teaching students how to properly prompt AI tools, verify outputs, and engage in revision and rethinking with the tools rather than letting AI uncritically do the work. Some teachers take a skeptical approach, demonstrating to students the risks of relying on generative AI. Some teachers ban the tools outright.
These diverse reactions aren’t necessarily a problem. In fact, it’s likely a very good thing for students to encounter teachers with varied approaches and philosophies so that students can understand several perspectives and think through their own approach holistically.
Teachers can help students think through the larger issues of AI use, explore the environmental impacts, learn how data centers may affect their communities, and reflect on how learning changes when they use AI and when they don’t.
As educator Stephanie Smith Budhai says, “So, we have to always think about what the technology is, who created it, what was the purpose of it. Where's the information coming from? And how correct is it? We want students to be critical consumers of information.”
Seasoned teachers have seen supposedly "disruptive tech” come and go in classrooms, so some may be tempted to ignore AI. But students need guidance and leadership. Strong teachers understand the tech well enough to develop informed opinions and share their understanding with students. They learn alongside their students and model what it looks like to keep learning and growing throughout a lifetime.
When students choose to experiment with AI, the pitfalls are many and well known, from producing work that is inaccurate, biased or plagiarized to undermining the learning that happens when a student goes through the process, makes mistakes, and corrects them.
A poll conducted by NPR/Ipsos notes that “54% of polled teachers say AI makes it harder for students to learn critical thinking skills.”
That’s where teachers come in, providing guidance, modeling how to think critically, reminding students that they remain responsible for the quality and accuracy of their work and providing feedback all through the process.
“Teaching students how to use AI appropriately and, even more importantly, when to use AI, is our responsibility.” — Anthony Salutari Jr., 2026 Connecticut High School Principal of the Year.
As of June 2026, it’s difficult to report the number of school districts embracing student-facing or teacher-facing AI tools—the number seems to change daily and feedback from parents, students and the community varies widely.
Many early adoption schools are rushing to make sure their students are prepared for an AI reality by actively rolling out student use, from Houston ISD’s nine AI-focused schools to California’s Redondo Beach High School rollout of Gemini in an “R U Ready for AI?” campaign.
While almost all education leaders agree schools need to respond, many believe that response doesn’t necessarily mean advocating for its use.
Rather, like American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, they encourage a focus on helping kids develop critical thinking and social skills, “because applied learning, problem solving, communication, collaboration, persistence — all of these — are the skills that any young adult is going to need in an AI world. In fact, these are the skills that are going to be much more competitive in an AI world.”
As school leaders, teachers help make these decisions by reporting on what they see in the classroom and advocating for the needs of students. And when tech tools become disruptive, teachers can be there to advocate for change. This is why we’ve seen a big rollback of previous policies allowing computers and phones in classrooms. Teachers have led the charge.
The answer to this question depends on who you ask. As with the population at large, teachers adopt technology tools in different ways and on different timelines. The big difference is that virtually all teachers need some familiarity with how AI tools work in order to guide their students.
With that in mind, most teachers will need to respond in some way to AI and learn the basics well enough to help students. For other uses, the results so far are mixed.
In the NPR/Ipsos poll, “a majority of teachers polled — 6-in-10 — say they've used AI themselves to help with work tasks.” Teachers who do use generative AI in their work say they’ve tested tools to help them:
Some argue that using the tools saves them hours of work. Others say that results are mediocre and rob them of the opportunity to deepen their craft by tackling these tasks themselves. On average, teachers in the NPR poll say the saved time equaled less than two hours for the week.
As more teachers learn about AI, test tools, and explore the effects on their practice, we’ll start to see which use cases make good sense for teachers, which produce inaccurate or problematic results, which are poor substitutes for their own thinking and creativity, and which simply aren’t worth the larger costs.
The classroom will always be a source of learning, innovation, creativity, inspiration and empowerment from exceptional leaders and passionate educators. In many ways, AI is just another advanced technology that, when used properly, can enhance learning and streamline work. In other ways, it has the potential to change everything about teaching and learning, and not necessarily for the better.
What will ensure that the changes to come are in our collective best interests? Humans working together, thoughtfully and creatively. Testing the boundaries of the new technology and reporting back what they find. Innovating where it’s helpful and applying a critical lens where it’s needed. Negotiating the future alongside the tech and one another.
The future is happening in classes every day, and the guidance teachers provide will shape the way future leaders think, communicate and interact and the extent to which they bring their own creativity, humanity and values to the tasks and what they hand over to the bots.
That’s a deeply human responsibility and a mission worthy of educators.