Learn With Our Experts: Future of Education with Embedded AI

In our "Learn with Our Experts" series, we invite specialists to #ShareViews on current trends in education. Today's guest writer is Anna Helminen, Director of UX & New Product Concepts. Anna has been working at Sanoma Learning for the past 5 years, making sure that our digital products support teachers and help students reaching their learning goals. Her work also involves mapping the opportunities Artificial Intelligence can bring to improve customer-facing applications. In this essay, Anna reflects on how learning and teaching as artificial intelligence continue to evolve. Future of Education: Learning and Teaching with Embedded AIBy Anna Helminen, UX & new Product Concepts Director at Sanoma LearningHave you noticed how AI is becoming part of nearly every experience we have? I bet you have. The pace isn't slowing down. Big tech companies are pouring resources into making AI solutions smarter, faster, and even more deeply embedded in our lives. AI solutions are reshaping what we even mean by intelligence. That's why we need to keep evolving our own intelligence, knowledge, and thinking - and especially rethink - how education adapts to this shift. Our user research team keeps a pulse on teachers and students, discovering their needs to ensure that technology and pedagogy evolve hand in hand to improve education. During research sessions, one teacher accurately mentioned, "AI is here to stay, and we should try to keep up with it. At its best, it's a powerful tool that can save teachers time and boost learning. But the challenge is that we should teach students to think. It is hard if they outsource their thinking to AI." Thus, start with purpose, not only technology. That's true for artificial intelligence, too. The purpose of education is to develop minds that think critically and creatively about the world. Teachers bring this vision to life by sparking curiosity and guiding students along meaningful learning paths. There's a rich layer of human interaction that supports each learner's growth. Sure, AI can personalize learning, but it can't replace the human connection. It can enrich the experience, help target learning better, but as the EU AI Act (1) reminds us: the teacher remains the one steering the journey. AI plays a supporting role, not the starring one. According to Sanoma Learning's Teacher Survey (2), 55% of teachers believe AI can save time and improve personal productivity. At the same time, 71% are concerned about AI's impact on the quality of education. While teachers remain central to the learning process, AI assistants can handle repetitive and bureaucratic tasks, allowing educators to focus on creativity and build stronger connections with their students. A child born today will never know a world without AI. The future scenarios are constantly developing, full of unknown unknowns, challenges and opportunities. That's exactly why we need to help children grow into their full potential. As we build artificial intelligence, let's not forget we're still discovering the depths of human intelligence. I believe in a balanced partnership, humans and AI, each doing what they do best, with humans leading the way and maintaining oversight. AI isn't a threat to humanity; it's a new dimension that can expand what we're capable of. But we must be careful not to let AI thinking override human thinking. It's easy for kids (and adults alike) to accept what AI offers without pausing to think before or after. Fortunately, students recognize this as well. In one of our research sessions with students, a secondary student shared: "I do expect AI to push me and not just give me the answer unless I really can't figure it out. I want it to motivate me to find the solution myself, because if you're just given the answer, you don't learn anything." Let's build a future that amplifies what makes us human. Learning should be not just efficient, but meaningful. Teaching should remain, at its heart, a deeply human act. I'm proud that at Sanoma Learning, we're co-creating AI teaching and learning assistants with teachers and students. These assistants won't be add-ons. They'll be seamlessly embedded into the learning and teaching experiences in helpful, thoughtful ways. We're starting small, discovering, designing, piloting, and scaling what truly adds value. We carry a big responsibility to design AI that respects pedagogy and preserves the human touch. Together with our user researchers, our UX designers contribute throughout the entire product development process, from initial concepts and user flows to final implementation, utilizing the Sanoma Learning Design System (3) as a foundation. The best educational AI solutions will be based on curated content, which makes them significantly more powerful and relevant. This is where Sanoma Learning stands out: we are uniquely positioned to bring responsible AI into classrooms, ensuring that educational technology is both effective and trustworthy. A secondary student expressed it well: "AI help with homework should really align with the material from the textbooks I use, so that I get questions and learn directly from that content." For students, the learning assistant becomes a companion: offering help with exercises and explaining difficult concepts in a way that's accessible and encouraging. It's not about replacing the teacher, but about enriching the learning journey with timely, personalized support. For teachers, the AI assistants offer support with various tasks, freeing up time for creativity and deeper interactions with students. Teachers can adapt content to better motivate learners in their own context and pace or create additional exercises to meet diverse needs. Reviewing student answers becomes easier too, with AI helping to handle the routine checks while the teacher maintains a thorough approach. Strong early examples of these iteratively developed solutions include the itslearning survey tool (already available for teachers) (4), the AI speech coach for students, set to launch later this school year, and a pilot of AI-supported learning path creation in Spain. Learn more about our AI-powered solutions. So, you might be asking yourself: Will the future of education be overruled by AI? No, it won't. We believe in a future where humans remain central to the learning process. We can make this work! Let's keep using our own brains and encourage future generations to do the same. Let's build AI solutions that honor human values. After all, we're the ones creating AI solutions, not the other way around. Purposeful learning is a fundamental human right. 1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32024R1689 2. https://www.sanomalearning.com/en/our-solutions/european-teacher-survey/ 3. https://sanomalearning.design/ 4. https://itslearning.com/itslearning-ai-principles