The promise was huge. Generative AI would transform education. It would automate lesson planning, grade papers, and even personalize learning like never before. But for many teachers, that promise arrived not as transformation — but as a flood of half-baked tools.
Now, after months of experimentation and frustration, teachers are speaking clearly. And their message is simple: AI should help us teach, not try to replace what we do best.
From simplifying admin work to supporting multilingual learners, educators across the country are building a wish list for what they actually want from AI — and what they want to leave out.
AI Needs to Save Time Without Taking Over
At the top of the list is time. More specifically, the time teachers lose to repetitive, low-value tasks.
Lesson scaffolding, rubric generation, reading-level adaptation, and even parent communication are all things educators are already offloading to AI tools like MagicSchool AI, ChatGPT, and Diffit.
“One of the biggest ways AI can help is with differentiation,” says Kim Zajac, a speech pathologist in Massachusetts. “What used to take hours now happens in seconds.”
That time, teachers say, is being reinvested in what matters most — connecting with students. AI should assist, not dictate. Support, not replace.
Automation Is Welcome but Relationships Are Not Negotiable
Grading, communication, and planning can be streamlined. But student-teacher relationships are off limits.
“All the AI in the world won’t replace what happens face-to-face in a classroom,” says Allison Reid, director of digital learning at Wake County Schools in North Carolina.
Teachers are comfortable using AI to highlight rubric points in student work, but few trust it to assign grades. And in special education, educators are even more cautious. AI can process and flag data, but clinical decisions remain a human responsibility.
“We don’t want AI deciding therapy paths,” says Zajac. “We want support, not substitution.”
Teachers Want AI Built With Them, Not For Them
One of the biggest complaints? Tools that misunderstand the complexity of teaching.
Too many platforms are rushed to market without teacher input, resulting in clunky UX or irrelevant functionality. Educators are urging companies to build with teacher guidance, not top-down coding assumptions.
“When vendors don’t understand how schools actually work, they miss huge opportunities,” says Reid.
At California’s Desert Sands Unified, innovation chief Tiffany Norton says AI adoption was most successful when it began with school leaders and grew organically. Teachers don’t want templated tools. They want AI tailored to their subject areas, their students, and their daily pressures.
Personalization and Accessibility Are the Game Changers
One area where teachers are genuinely excited is content customization.
Platforms that can translate materials, simplify vocabulary, or scaffold texts for multilingual learners and students with disabilities are already proving indispensable. In one New York district, teachers piloting Google’s real-time transcription tools called them “worth their weight in gold.”
There’s also growing interest in AI as a data partner. Can it help identify at-risk students earlier? Can it recommend evidence-based interventions teachers may not see? The vision isn’t about replacement. It’s about adding intelligence to human intuition.
Let AI Do the Boring Stuff So Teachers Can Do the Important Stuff
Educators aren’t afraid of AI. They’re just asking the right questions — and demanding better answers.
They want tools that:
- Save time on admin and prep
- Customize materials for diverse learners
- Support, not replace, classroom relationships
- Provide insight without overreach
- Respect the craft of teaching
As Bill Bass, innovation coordinator in Missouri, puts it: “AI won’t replace teachers. But it can help us move beyond walled gardens and automate the basics so we can focus on what really matters.”
That’s not anti-innovation. That’s smart innovation grounded in reality. And if the edtech industry is listening, that’s exactly where the next wave of impact will come from.
