AI Agents Will Shape Every Aspect Of Education In 2025

Artificial Intelligence has been at the forefront of educational technology and innovation discussions these past two years and will likely continue to be so for the foreseeable future. To discern what may be coming in 2025, I asked several education innovators who had shaped stories in 2024 for their takes on what they see as being just over the horizon. One theme that stood out was the rise of AI Agents.

The Rise Of AI Agents

In this context, the sense of “agent” is the difference between using a tool to accomplish something yourself and asking someone to do something for you. Imagine that you are trying to solve a mathematics program. The tool approach would be using a search engine to look up the problem or find a solution, after which you would have to sift through the results. The agent approach would be asking it to solve the problem for you. In doing so, the less contextual information you need to provide along with your question, the more natural the process feels. If the AI agent has a clear sense of who you are, what you know, and how you prefer to learn, it becomes very easy to think of it as an entity you are interacting with rather than a tool you are using.

Bill Salak, Brainly’s Chief Technical Officer, expects 2025 to see the emergence of AI agents capable of executing complex tasks based on simple user instructions. “Instead of navigating through multiple platforms, users will communicate their goals to an agent, which will act on their behalf, aggregating data, making decisions, and seamlessly performing actions. This evolution will fundamentally change how we experience and utilize the web, prioritizing efficiency and personalization. Websites designed for human interaction will be transformed into APIs optimized for agents to find and act on the capabilities of the business behind the API.”

Brad Barton, YouScience’s CTO, concurs, noting that as “AIs become more sophisticated, they’re rapidly becoming a favorite among students for their interactive and personalized support. We can expect to see them increasingly integrated into classrooms, tutoring platforms, and educational apps as educators embrace this engaging tool for learning.”

Jack Lynch, CEO of HMH, also sees AI agents taking on more significant roles in K-12 education.“This coming year, we’ll see real progress in using technology, particularly GenAI, to free up teachers’ time. This will enable them to focus on what they do best: working directly with students and fostering the deep connections crucial for student growth and achievement.”

Being interactive and personalized makes the experience compelling for students because the AI interacts with a student, like how a teacher interacts with a student. A good AI agent is like a good teacher who, when asked a question, also understands the student’s current level of knowledge and gives a reply optimized to promote understanding. Sometimes, that may be answering the question with a question or answering a different question that addresses the underlying confusion that led to the original question.

AI Agents In The Classroom And Beyond

The role of agents will not just be the role of the teacher. Bill Salak observes that “AI agents will take on many responsibilities traditionally handled by human employees, from administrative tasks to more complex, analytical roles. This transition will result in a large-scale redefinition of how humans contribute” to the educational experience. Humans must focus on unique skills—creativity, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and adaptability. Roles will increasingly revolve around supervising, collaborating with, or augmenting the capabilities of AI agents.

Jay Patel, SVP & GM of Webex Customer Experience Solutions at Cisco, agrees that AI Agents will be everywhere. They will not just change the classroom experience for students and teachers but profoundly impact all domains. He notes that these AI models, including small language models, are “sophisticated enough to operate on individual devices, enabling users to have highly personalized virtual assistants.” These agents will be more efficient, attuned to individual needs, and, therefore, seemingly more intelligent.

Jay Patel predicts that “the adopted agents will embody the organization’s unique values, personalities, and purpose. This will ensure that the AIs interact in a deeply brand-aligned way.” This will drive a virtuous cycle, as AI agent interactions will not seem like they have been handed off to an untrained intern but rather to someone who knows all and only what they are supposed to know.

Looking AI Agents In The Eye

For AI agents to realize their full potential, the experience of interacting with them must feel natural. Casual, spoken interaction will be significant, as will the ability of the agent to understand the context in which a question is being asked.

Hassaan Raza, CEO of Tavus, feels that a “human layer” will enable AI agents to realize their full potential as teachers. Agents need to be relatable and able to interact with students in a manner that shows not just subject-domain knowledge but empathy. A robust interface for these agents will include video, allowing students to look the AI in the eye.

Tavus provided a viral example of such an interface when it released a digital Santa Claus this past December. Within weeks, over one million individuals met with the digital Santa, advocating their right to be on the nice list. Tavus has found that providing the correct type of human interface to an AI dramatically increases people’s ability to have satisfying interactions.

Part of what makes this possible has been the shift to working with distributed teams in video environments. Once we are used to working via video with teachers or students we have never met in person, it becomes much easier to work with AI agents, especially if those agents have a robust video presence.

The success of AI companions provides another example of what can be possible. While the focus of such companies has not been creating supportive study partners, the potential for such remains significant and illustrates other directions that AI agents might develop.

AI Agents Will Become Ubiquitous

The potential of agents is in education is significant. As Anurag Dhingra, SVP & GM of Cisco Collaboration, said, “You’re going to wake up one day in 2025 and realize you’ve been using Generative AI all along. Whether you’re at work, at school, at home, when you’re on vacation, or just using your phone – AI will subtly work its way into nearly everything we do.”

The way that AI will enter our everyday lives will be in the guise of AI agents. And as we grow more comfortable using them, companies will become increasingly comfortable deploying them across every aspect of their organization. This will be particularly true in education where there decades long drive towards personalization has already laid the groundwork. Expect to see AI agents shape every aspect of education in 2025.