Increased computational power and massive amounts of data have made Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) a key driver of growth for many industries. In Education, AI has seen rapid progress in recent years as it aims to develop new teaching and learning solutions to improve education quality, increase efficiency, and promote educational equity.
HolonIQ’s ongoing research into AI in Education explores the potential impact of AI technologies across education sectors globally, including expectations and approaches to adopting AI, application and value creation, organizational barriers, and capability development. This research update captures education industry attitudes and shifts as institutions and organizations consider the role of AI in digital adoption and transformation progress.
AI in education is expected to benefit learners, educators and institutions in multiple ways, including automation of administrative tasks and processes and personalized learning at scale, enabling educators to focus on higher value activities such as student mentoring and support.
Expectations for AI impact: technologies and markets
HolonIQ’s AI technology Applications Framework identifies four key technologies driving uses of AI in education: Vision, Voice, Language and Analytics.
At this point in time, Analytics and Language are perceived as having most potential impact on the education industry. Both applications play an integral part, for example, in scaling and integrating intelligent Adaptive Learning solutions across the education sector. Intelligent Adaptive Learning is a disruptive technology backed by AI that aims to personalize teaching based on students’ learning preferences, knowledge state and progress.
Figure 1. Assessing potential impact of Voice, Vision, ML & NLP technologies on education
While it is still in the early stage, Voice and Vision are also important sub-applications for Intelligent Adaptive learning systems. For instance, computer vision has been increasingly used to gather information such as mouse movements, eye tracking and sentiment analysis when teaching complex subjects, delivering in-depth insights on the student performance. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, these solutions have also been introduced through technologies such as remote proctoring.
Figure 2. Expected impact of AI technologies on different education markets.
Looking at education markets more broadly, AI is expected to have most impact on Testing and Assessment, followed by Language Learning, Corporate Training/ Upskilling and Higher Education.