Can AI Replace Teachers, or Will Human Guidance Always Matter? Insights from AgileIntel

AI-powered learning platforms can now tailor lessons to individual student needs, automate grading, and generate personalised exercises in real time. Despite these technological advances, whether AI can replace human teachers remains pressing. 

Evidence from leading global organisations suggests otherwise. Teachers are essential for their professional expertise and role in safeguarding equity, ethics, and human connection.  

What AI is Doing in Education: Insights from Reports 

AI adoption is surging across the education sector worldwide. A 2025 Microsoft report on AI in Education reveals that 86% of educational institutions use generative AI in teaching and learning, from adaptive systems to administrative automation. According to recent research and global reports, the following highlights key areas where AI already impacts classrooms. 

• Automating Routine Tasks: AI can handle grading, lesson planning, and administrative duties, allowing teachers to save time and focus on higher-value activities such as mentoring and one-on-one student engagement. 

  
  

• Personalised Learning Pathways: Adaptive learning platforms use AI to tailor content to individual learners, providing differentiated instruction at scale. In its 2023 report, Guidance for Generative AI in Education and Research, UNESCO highlights how adaptive platforms can tailor content to individual learners. The report emphasises that teachers must contextualise these pathways, ensuring learning aligns with broader developmental goals and ethical standards. 

  
  

• Boosting Student Agency and Engagement: AI supports active, student-led learning by offering interactive content, simulations, and real-time feedback. The World Economic Forum, in its 2024 report Schools of the Future, notes that teachers are central in guiding collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity, roles that AI cannot replace. 

  
  

• Enhancing Feedback and Assessment: AI delivers immediate, personalised feedback, improving learning outcomes. A systematic review by Carlos Merino-Campos, published in 2025 in Trends in Higher Education, analysed 45 higher education studies and found that AI significantly improves feedback quality. However, teachers are needed to validate insights and ensure academic integrity. 

  
  

• Developing AI Literacy: Teachers are crucial in guiding students to understand AI's capabilities, limitations, and ethical implications. OECD and the European Commission, in their 2025 AI Literacy Framework, emphasise embedding AI literacy across curricula to prepare students for responsible AI use.  

What AI Cannot Do That Teachers Can 

• Foster Emotional Intelligence: AI can track engagement, but it cannot foster empathy, resilience, or emotional growth. Teachers interpret body language, build trust, and offer encouragement, skills essential for holistic development. 

  
  

• Provide Ethical and Moral Guidance: Algorithms may suggest content, but only teachers can contextualise learning within cultural values, ethics, and societal norms. 

  
  

• Build Relationships and Mentorship: Teachers inspire, mentor, and act as role models. Students often remember not what they learned but who helped them learn. No AI system can replicate that connection. 

  
  

• Adapt to Unpredictable Situations: Unlike AI, teachers can improvise when a lesson goes off track, when a student faces emotional challenges, or when external events impact the classroom. This adaptability is uniquely human. 

  
  

• Cultivate Creativity and Critical Thinking: AI can generate ideas, but cannot ignite students' curiosity or promote divergent thinking. Teachers guide learners in questioning, debating, and creating, skills vital for innovation. 

Real-world examples of AI and teachers working together 

The following real-world examples illustrate how AI is being integrated into classrooms. 

• Duolingo in language learning: Millions of learners use Duolingo's AI-driven personalised practice sessions, but human teachers still provide structure, cultural context, and motivation in schools. The app supports vocabulary drilling while teachers focus on speaking fluency and classroom interaction. 

• Carnegie Learning's MATHia in the U.S.: This AI-based math software adapts to students' problem-solving approaches. Teachers use MATHia's analytics to identify which students need targeted help. The result is a hybrid model where AI tracks mastery of skills while teachers step in for conceptual clarification. 

• Squirrel AI in China: One of the largest AI-powered adaptive learning companies, Squirrel AI delivers hyper-personalised content pathways. However, teachers remain in classrooms as facilitators who interpret AI feedback, maintain discipline, and address learning gaps the system cannot catch. 

• Microsoft's Reading Progress in the UK: Pilots of this AI tool for reading fluency show how teachers benefit from automated analysis of oral reading. Teachers use the insights to plan interventions for struggling readers instead of spending hours marking recordings. 

• Andhra Pradesh, India: Personalised Adaptive Learning (PAL)  In partnership with ConveGenius and the Central Square Foundation, Andhra Pradesh introduced the PAL program across government schools. A study showed that students achieved learning gains equivalent to 1.9 years in just 17 months. Teachers played a crucial role by interpreting AI insights and applying them to classroom strategies. 

These examples demonstrate that AI enhances teaching efficiency but cannot replace the essential human qualities of trust, empathy, and long-term skill development. 

A roadmap for schools and leaders 

To ensure teachers remain central while using AI effectively, schools can take four steps: 

• Invest in AI literacy so teachers can evaluate and adapt tools critically. 

  
  

• Adopt human-in-the-loop workflows where teachers constantly review AI outputs. 

  
  

• Prioritise equity by auditing tools for bias and monitoring their impact on underserved students. 

  
  

• Use AI for workload reduction so teachers can devote more time to creative and relational aspects of teaching. 

These steps align with global policy recommendations and demonstrate how AI can amplify human expertise rather than diminish it. 

How AgileIntel Can Help 

At AgileIntel, we view AI as a tool to enhance, not replace, human expertise. We support education leaders and EdTech providers by: 

• Shape strategy using global policy insights to ensure responsible adoption. 

  
  

• Support teachers with AI literacy resources and integration guidance. 

  
  

• Safeguard equity by assessing risks around bias, privacy, and inclusion. 

Our perspective is simple: the future of AI in education must remain human-centric, with teachers at the core. 

Conclusion: The Symbiotic Future of AI and Teachers 

AI-powered personalised learning transforms education by increasing adaptability, scalability, and efficiency. However, teachers remain central because of their unique human qualities. The most effective educational models will foster collaboration, with AI enhancing rather than replacing teachers' abilities. 

As affirmed by the World Economic Forum and Microsoft's 2025 reports, combining AI's analytical power with teachers' empathy and mentorship will create more personalised, equitable, and effective learning for future generations. This synergy promises a new era for education, one where technology and humanity walk hand in hand toward students' intellectual and social growth.