New Department of Education US regulations urge schools to incorporate AI into the classroom

In a milestone for American students' learning, the US Department of Education released new rules on schools implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom to further enhance student progress. The guide establishes how federal grant funding can be used to fund AI-tutoring, college and career advising, and customized instruction content if done ethically with human oversight in the foreground.

What it means for students

The legislation is not requiring the use of AI but nominally permits schools and grantees to spend money on AI technology that will be helpful to teachers, tutors, and academic advisors. On the side of the students, it would mean in the future more customized learning spaces where content might be modified in real time according to learning needs.

Mass high-impact tutoring facilitated by AI would be accessible to those who need it, and web counseling systems would desilo course enrollment, financial planning, and work-to-post-secondary transitions.

More generally, the Department is challenging schools to harness AI to enhance, not supplant, existing teachers in the classroom. Maximum access, equity, and student success are the Department's top concerns.

Three ways schools can use AI today

Schools can use federal funds to

Enhance instruction: This entails developing or obtaining AI-based tools that adapt content to student performance and give real-time feedback.

 AI-based tutoring systems may supplement human tutors, offering ongoing academic support and matching students to services based on their individual knowledge gaps. AI technologies will allow students to discover potential careers, academic preparedness, and web counseling sites that facilitate postsecondary readiness.

Five departmental guiding principles

The Department of Education announced that the implementation of AI in education will have to adhere to five principles:

It should be teacher-driven and augment, and never displace, human professionals.

It should be ethical, i.e., how it educates K-12 students to use AI ethically

It should be readable and accessible to students and digitally empowered families

It should be readable and understandable, with infrastructure that parents and teachers can understand

It has to comply in its entirety with all of the data privacy statutes, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

Why this matters now

The guidance is coming as American schools look for new means to tailor learning and close knowledge gaps following the pandemic. The Department is making opportunity and caution clear by moving to officially sanction using artificial intelligence through the use of federal funding channels: opportunity and caution. The Department is calling on the schools to collaborate with researchers and communities and apply AI in a manner that will help students and befit.

To students, particularly those underachieving in school or wondering what to do with their life after school, AI is going to become a part of their reality that operates behind the scenes to help them in good time and provide more precise instructions.

The official order came out from the US Department of Education on July 22, 2025.