Education has always been an uneven playing field. Under-resourced school systems have had to make do with limited classroom supplies and older materials while their well-heeled counterparts often benefited from the latest resources. Now as schools become increasingly digital, these inequities are at risk of widening.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest innovation to enter the classroom. Technologists, educators, and nonprofit leaders who attended Salesforce’s recent Education & AI Summit agree that AI is already transforming how we teach and learn. However, the technology is at a crossroads: it can exacerbate the digital divide in education and inequities in the workforce — or help level the playing field.
Experts at the summit unpacked how AI in education can help close equity gaps and empower the next generation. As districts prepare for the new school year, we’ll share key learnings from the event.
Key learnings:
Why AI literacy matters
As students interact with AI, it’s important to consider how this technology will affect their future careers. While AI may open the door for certain jobs to be replaced, it can also enhance performance and help forge new career paths. Among desk workers who currently use AI tools, 81% say it’s improving their productivity.
With AI taking on a larger role in the workplace, it’s essential for young people to establish a foundation of digital and AI literacy.
“We need to be able to learn how to learn,” Alex Swartsel, managing director of insights at Jobs for the Future, said at the summit. “We need to understand ourselves, to know what our interests are, what kinds of careers we want to pursue, and what help we may need to get there. And of course, we need a foundational level of digital literacy, of core AI literacy, of computing skills, of all of these things.”
And if you think those skills are only necessary for science or tech careers, Sarah Henderson, senior program manager for Tech Education at Google.org, said that’s not the case.
More Resources For AI in Education
“Whether you are pursuing a STEM career, a pathway in academia, or something completely different, skills in digital fluency, computational thinking, and responsible and ethical use of technology are evermore foundational,” Henderson added.
However, there’s still work to do in establishing digital literacy programs to prepare students. A recent survey of U.S. school superintendents found that while most believe schools are obligated to teach responsible AI use, only 37% have established a plan to incorporate AI instruction into the classroom.
“The reality is not all schools are even addressing [AI literacy development] because it’s supplemental,” said Merve Lapus, vice president of education outreach at Common Sense Media. “We need to weave it into our academic instruction, the way that we hope to scale up our educators and scale up our students. And the only way we’re going to do that is with real intentionality.”
As that future grows increasingly digital, educators will become responsible for teaching AI literacy. In turn, tech, business, and academic leaders have a responsibility to equip teachers with resources to help students succeed.
AI equity and access
Equity and access are two top considerations when integrating AI into education.
We need to ensure that all students have the resources and support needed to reach their full academic potential, regardless of their background. This includes access to AI training and technology.
You don’t have to look far to find the digital divide. In New York City, over 1 in 3 black and Hispanic households and 45% of low-income households lack access to high-speed internet. These inequities will only compound in the AI era if we’re not deliberate about finding a solution.
While we’re still in the early stages of bringing AI to classrooms, education, technology, and policy leaders must begin this journey by define what creating equitable access to AI means. Several education innovators at our summit shared their visions:
Denise Forte, president and CEO of The Education Trust, said equity is about providing opportunities for students that are often overlooked. “It’s about centering those [students] who have been under-resourced, who have been marginalized, and who’ve been pushed out, and lifting those students up to make sure that the systems available to them are bringing the highest opportunity possible,” she said.
For Jeff Livingston, CEO of EdSolutions, equity means bringing more opportunities to more people. “Talent is evenly distributed in the population but opportunity is not — equity for me means fixing that second part of it,” Livingston said. “That means making sure that race and zip code become less predictive of outcomes than they are today.”
One underlying takeaway from our panelists was clear: AI equity requires a concerted effort from both the education and tech sectors. To support students, families, and schools on their AI journeys, more resources and investments are needed.
To help meet this need, Salesforce is building our longstanding commitment to education philanthropy by focusing on AI equity and access. Through strategic grants and programs like the Salesforce Accelerator – AI for Impact, we aim to close equity gaps so everyone stands to benefit from AI technology.
AI’s impact on learning
AI has the potential to transform how students learn and address many of the perennial issues that teachers currently face. In fact, 60% of educators reported using AI in their classrooms. Students are also already using AI to help with learning. Nearly half of students in grades 10-12 said they use AI tools for school and non-school activities. Students report using AI most often for language arts and social studies assignments.
Meisha Porter, CEO of the Bronx Community Foundation, explained how proper training can help educators get comfortable with AI. She encouraged them to approach this as an opportunity to partner with students.
“We talk about an ideal classroom where the teacher is the facilitator of learning,” Porter said. “If we bring in young people, and really center the student voice and lift it up high as a real partnership in learning, the idea of student agency becomes real.”
Yusuf Ahmad, co-founder of Playlab, said it will take time and iterations to find the sweet spot for AI in classrooms. For example, education officials in New York City have proactively invited teachers, experts, and students to play with AI and discuss what it looks like to bring the tech into the classroom.
Alex Kotran, co-founder and CEO of aiEDU, which provides equitable learning experiences, shared how AI is helping start new conversations in classrooms.
Get articles just like this one, right in your inbox
“What we’ve seen in our classrooms, which I think is really inspiring, is teachers who are using AI ethics as the onramp to actually introducing this concept of artificial intelligence to kids,” said Kotran. “Most schools do not have the ability to give kids access to ChatGPT. Well, you don’t need to have access to ChatGPT to have a classroom debate about whether journalists should be replaced by ChatGPT.”
A panel of high school students also weighed in on the impact of AI in the classroom. Gabriel Brown, an incoming first-year student at Yale, recognized that some students view AI as a shortcut, but believes in its potential to contribute meaningfully.
“A lot of people hear ‘AI’ and they think, ‘Okay, I’m going to use ChatGPT and copy and paste the question the teacher gave me,’ and get an essay,” Brown explained. “I think that’s kind of a reductionist way of thinking. I think AI can be used for a lot more than that, and academically, it could be used for a lot of good.”
Supporting the AI in education transformation
Expanding AI into classrooms can be nerve-wracking for educators, but they shouldn’t have to go at it alone. Now is the time for school systems to help teachers and students get familiar with technology — and for the private sector to lean in to provide resources like funding and technology to help bridge equity gaps.
Taking action now can help ensure students are set up for long-term success, and that AI can be a force for good.
