What is GenAI?
Likely there is not a more topical issue, excepting tariffs, than the discussions around the scope and influence of Generative AI or GenAI in business, science, industry and, of course, education. COVID changed the landscape as the world moved to online, hybrid and remote and embraced digital technology. Predictive AI uses pattern recognition and utilizes mathematical models, while Generative AI accesses large language models to answer questions in a user-like, conversational manner. Predictive AI is being used in research, science and medicine while GenAI holds opportunities and offers possibilities for education/learning.
GenAI transforms as it accesses and analyzes publicly available digital content from a myriad of sources (Baidoo-Anu & Owusu Ansah, 2023; Scott, 2025). Now Chatbots, virtual tutoring, adaptive and personalized learning are an established part of GenAI’s repertoire, and the landscape continues to change. There has been a rapid adoption of ChatGPT, which produces specific, interactional and adaptive responses based on a given prompt or context. ChatGPT had 100 million monthly active users in just two months of its release. Currently 400 million/week are using ChatGPT (Roose, 2025). If you want a detailed understanding, ask ChatGPT to explain how it works. OpenAI and ChatGPT’s Deep Research are capable of complex thinking and score highly on problem-based mathematical assessments (Roose, 2025).
GenAI has been added to the EdTech suites from Microsoft, Google, the Khan Academy and others (Langreo, 2025). A new version, ChatGPT EDU has just been launched. Initially focused on post-secondary education, with plans to move K-12. Microsoft’s CoPilot pops up offering to assist in finding or generating information.
Mollick (2024) refers to AI as co-intelligence and a digital companion. He writes “Humans are subject to all sorts of biases that impact our decision-making. But many of these biases come from our being stuck in our own minds. Now we have another (strange, artificial) co-intelligence we can turn to for help” (2024 :48). The new term for what AI might morph into is Artificial General Intelligence or AGI (Roose, 2025).
GenAI is already impacting industry. “More employees are using gen AI for a third or more of their work than their leaders imagine; more than 70% of all employees believe that within 2 years GenAI will change 30% or more of their work” (Mayer, Yee, Chui, & Roberts, 2025: 3).
Torchia (2025) discusses AI in the context of collaboration within an "agentic world." One example of GenAI's effective use, as highlighted by Torchia (2025), is its role in enhancing operational efficiencies. She explores ways to improve district attendance through an agentic study of workflow, analyzing historical patterns, test data, surveys, pedagogical strategies, and programs. By conducting predictive analysis across these data sets, she proposes potential strategies for consideration. Additionally, GenAI can enhance efficiency by streamlining administrative and routine tasks such as scheduling and report writing. It can be trained to grade students’ assessments and provide feedback, freeing teachers to focus on other aspects of their craft (Baidoo-Anu & Owusu Ansah, 2023). It can offer personalized tutoring and adapt the learning to meet specific learning needs and preferences. Tools such as ChatGPT can offer students explanations and understandings of complex concepts and processes. GenAI offers a myriad of emerging educational possibilities. Teaching students ethical use of GenAI within digital literacy will soon form part of the curriculum as does SEL and societal and personal issues related to use of social media today (Mollick, 2025; Roose, 2025; Torchia, 2025).
Exploring the Possibilities in Education
However, as educators consider potential benefits of utilizing these transformative operational and teaching/learning tools, they also want to consider exercising a balanced and strategic approach to mitigate risk. GenAI depends on the quality and quantity of data. It is essential to anticipate and mitigate unintended consequences, such as cybersecurity breaches, privacy and confidentiality risks, potential for cheating and plagiarism, the generation of false or misleading information, and algorithmic biases (Baidoo-Anu & Owusu Ansah, 2023; OECD, 2023). Additionally, educators worry that given students’ reliance of social media, implementation may lead to further abuses on social media. Scott, (2025) and Mollick (2025) advocate for the human touch - teachers, and tutors to be in the loop, guiding, supporting, and offering assistance.
Students are already heavily invested. According to a National Public Radio report, 40% of US toddlers already have their own devices. Screen use has increased and more children, according to the report, are watching videos on algorithm-driven platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. Pew Research Centre found that the number of teens using ChatGPT doubled between 2023 and 2024 (Mendez -Padillia, 2025).
GenAI querying differs from Google’s keyword-based searches. Instead, GenAI relies on prompts to be effective, engaging in dialogic interactions with users. These interactions are detailed, incorporating context, user-specific information, and considerations for the intended audience. In terms of classroom use, students need to critically analyze, continue to dialogue with follow-up questions and then refine the results (Li, Wang, Zhang, Zhu, Hou, Lian, Lou, Yang, & Xie, 2023). GenAI has value-added potential, since being AI literate will open job possibilities and increase students’ abilities to access new and diverse roles as they move into post-secondary (Moldovevanu, 2025). Christensen (2025) writes that students and teachers need a ‘future-ready mindset,’ open for curiosity, exploration, collaboration and empathy.
OECD (2023) refers to components that AI and a digital education ecosystem will be useful:
· Digital tools for system and institutional organization, including information systems, physical infrastructure management, and stakeholder communication.
· Digital tools for teaching, learning and assessment including accessing open educational resources or OERs,
· Training and ongoing support of the educational users and stakeholders.
Many students come to school technologically fluent, though likely not digitally fluent, in terms of being critical users of technology; now schools must adapt. As noted in previous articles, equity can manifest as a component of the digital divide. To access the technology, students need access to reliable, high-speed internet, and increasingly sophisticated and expensive hardware and software (Mayer et. al, 2025). This poses challenges for less affluent students, students with diverse learning needs, students in remote and rural areas, and immigrant/migrant students acculturating as Mult-Lingual Learners (MLL). In fact, a third of the world’s population lacks access to the Internet, unlike higher-income countries (Moldovevanu, 2025).
There are also gendered considerations. Young women’s access and use may also be limited in areas where cultural and structural gendered barriers persist, as is the case with youth from minority backgrounds (Moldovevanu, 2025). According to OECD, females comprise 27% of the AI workforce and are more likely to be in fields that may be disrupted by AI.
Peter Scott (2025) discussed the possible impact of GenAI in addressing educational inequities and supporting diversibility. It can customize content and assessments to specific learning challenges. Some districts are accessing GenAI in developing IEPs and selecting services, programs and strategies to use. As always caution must accompany implementation.
In terms of a specific example of GenAI and diversability, Generative AI has applications for Equity and Diversability. The Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital became the first pediatric hospital to use BCI, a technology that translates brain action into actions for non-verbal and mobility limited students. A sensor headset is used to identify and translate active thoughts such as clapping and then sends signals to pre-programmed devices such as gaming, computers and painting using a robotic ball (Smith, 2025). Smith (2025), in her Globe and Mail article, cites Jennifer Churchill, president of Empowered Kids Ontario, who stated that expanding the BCI program as a clinical tool to empower students and additional treatment centers will be a five-year initiative.
GenAI has additional transformative possibilities. Gen AI “can summarize, code, reason, engage in a dialogue, and make choices. AI can lower skill barriers, helping more people acquire proficiency in more fields, in any language and at any time. AI holds the potential to shift the way people access and use knowledge” (Mayer et. al, 2025: 6). It can connect visual, text and audio in new and creative ways, to engage students. These strategies can be useful with disengaged students to reconnect them to relevant responsive learning where they have choices.
References
Lanreo, L. (2025). More teachers say they are using AI in their lessons, Here’s how. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/more-teachers-say-theyre-using-ai-in-their-lessons-heres-how/2025/03
Li, C., Wang, J., Zhang, X., Zhu, K., Hou, W., Lian, J., Lou, F., Yang, Q, & Xie, X. (2023). Large language models understand and can be enhanced by emotional stimuli. Computation and Language.
Moldoveanu, M. (2025). GenAI @ Work: Implications for Global Youth, Rotman Management Winter 2025: 18-25.
Mayer, H., Yee, L, Chul, M. & Roberts, R. (2025). Superagency in the workplace. McKinsey and Company.
Mendez-Padilla, B. (2025). With more students using AI, how can schools promote academic integrity? K-12 Dive https://www.k12dive.com/news/ai--artifical-intelligence-students-academic-integrity-cheating/741413/
Mollick, E. (2024). Co-Intelligence, Living and Working with AI. Portfolio.
OECD. (2022). The effects of AI on the working lives of women. OECD. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-effects-of-ai-on-the-working-lives-of-women_14e9b92c-en.html
OECD. (2023). OECD Digital Education Outlook: Towards an effective digital education ecosystem. OECD. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-digital-education-outlook-2023_c74f03de-en.html
Ricaurte Quijano, P. & Prud’homme, B. (2024). Towards Substantive Equality in Artificial Intelligence: Transformative AI Policy for Gender Equality and Diversity. The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/closing-the-gender-gap
Riddle, K. (2025). Tablets for Tots? https://www.npr.org/2025/02/26/nx-s1-5308593/children-screens-ai-common-sense-media
Roose, K. (2025). AI will soon be smarter than humans. Let’s Discuss. New York Times. March 16, 2025. Sunday Business 1, 5.
Scott, P. (2025). How AI could change the way we teach and learn: A look into the future, Contact North – teachonline.ca
Shafter, L. (2025). Helping Students Navigate New Technology Responsibly. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/video/using-ai-chatbots-in-the-classroom?utm_content=linkpos1&utm_campaign=weekly-2025-02-26&utm_medium=email&utm_source=edu-newsletter
Smith, A. (2025). Turning Thoughts into Actions. Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-brain-computer-interface-children-with-disabilities-play/
Torchia, R. (2025). FETC 2025: ways to bring AI into your K-12 District. EdTech Magazine. https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2025/01/fetc-2025-ways-bring-ai-your-k-12-district
Endnotes
[i] ChatGPT EDU
[ii] The Effects of AI on the Working Lives of Women - OECD
