Generative AI in Education – Use Cases, Benefits for Edtech Industry 

The Edtech industry has become multi-million-dollar, and Generative AI in education is transforming the educational landscape. 

Several EdTech companies, including Coursera, edX, and Pearson, say this transformative technology (Generative AI) will benefit learners by enhancing their experience, providing personalized feedback, and automating administrative tasks.  

For example – edX, an online learning platform, introduced 2 learning assistants (edX plugin and edX expert) in the ChatGPT plugin store so that learners can discover the courses easily and access content quickly. 

Later, they have planned to bring more features to their learning platform, which includes –  

• Providing academic assistance to learners  
• Find the best-fit program options for students  
• Generate summaries of course content  

And much more 

The company understood that AI is a powerful technology to maximize learner outcomes.  

When they can harness the use of this technology, why not you? 

According to a data report from McKinsey, Generative AI will continue to increase productivity by adding trillions of dollars in value to the world’s economy.  

These technologies enable Edtech founders to reduce operational costs and design better student products. 

By the end of this blog, you will learn in-depth about Generative AI in education, its applications, and the benefits it will provide to enhance your learner’s experience. 

What is Generative AI in Education?  

Generative AI is a smart technology that can generate new content, be it writing or generating images or music, which was previously impossible. It learns from past data and figures out patterns to develop new outcomes. 

Generative AI in Edtech allows anyone to move beyond imagination. It makes learning more exciting, enjoyable and personalized for each of you. 

For Instance – If you want to learn a new language, Generative AI can help you generate conversations and quizzes so that you can learn new things more naturally. 

Or, if you are stuck with a creative writing assignment, you can head over to generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Bard to generate ideas so you can transform those in your writing voice and tone.  

Guess what?  

It can even write a draft that aligns with your writing voice. 

Moreover, Generative AI in Higher education teaches students about their learning styles to create personalized learning material based on student needs and preferences.   

It’s not confined to knowing students’ learning styles, as it makes the lives of students and educators easier. 

For Instance – It can generate educational content for educators and help them plan additional student material, such as quizzes, exercises, and lesson plans. All this provides immersive learning experiences for students. 

In a nutshell, Generative AI uses deep learning models to create new content (text, images and video) by learning from existing data. It becomes a guide for students as it changes the way students used to learn earlier.  

According to a report from the World Economic Forum, various schools and educational institutions banned ChatGPT last year as various concerns were raised because of cheating.  

When schools, colleges, and universities did not support using ChatGPT in education, UNESCO created the first level of global guidance using Generative AI.  

The initiative aims to highlight the importance of leveraging Generative AI to policymakers and teachers so they can best use such tools to enhance student learning experiences.  

As per UNESCO, the government should include an AI curriculum in schools and colleges so that students can acquire new skills.  

Their emphasis is more on developing AI competencies in each student so they can go beyond the boundaries of the traditional educational system. 

So, this technology offers more possibilities in the future where students can find exciting ways to learn at their own pace, and educators keep experimenting with it to receive the desired output. 

5 Use Cases of Generative AI in the Education Industry  

Generative AI provides various applications in the education industry.  

Undoubtedly, AI will lessen instructors’ workloads as they already have much on their plates. Of course, AI will never replace educators, as education is always centered around the human element. 

Moreover, AI makes learning addictive because it excites learners to work on self-improvement.  

Earlier, it was a challenge for teachers to motivate their learners, be it related to learning a new language or starting a career in programming. 

Let’s discuss some of the use cases of Generative AI in Education.  

1. Creates personalized lessons  

Generative AI is shifting its focus from a one-size-fits-all approach to creating personalized learning material for students.  

By leveraging Generative AI, Edtech startups can tailor their teaching strategies and create custom learning plans to enhance learning experiences for students. 

This way, students can now understand the concepts and learn everything at their own pace because learning has become more personalized.  

As students receive personalized support and attention from teachers, they become highly engaged with the content.  

If educators focus on creating personalized content /learning plans for each student, it will take most of their time. They would not be able to focus on other important tasks.  

However, Generative AI solves the problem for educational institutions by automating administrative tasks and emphasizing individualized support for each student. 

It even proves to be extremely beneficial for students with disorders or disabilities.  

For Instance – Speechify provides a Generative AI tool, which is a text-to-speech AI tool that facilitates the creation of individualized education programs.   

It is helpful for students with visual impairments or disabilities. This text-to-speech software converts all your text files into audio.  

This enhances the reader’s experience, and they can continue learning course content without boredom. 

2. Design courses  

Earlier, planning lessons and course structure was merely a time-consuming task for teachers.  

When you think of generative AI in education, it can generate any kind of content you need, such as course plans, assignments and syllabi.  

Traditional content generation methods involve creating manual content exposed to manual errors. Such content creation fails to meet users’ diverse needs as it lacks a personalized touch. 

Moreover, Generative AI, when combined with other technologies such as AR/VR, provides immersive learning experiences to students. It provides interactive stuff for both teachers and students. 

Coursera, for instance, uses an AI-assisted course builder (generative AI) to automatically create course content, assignments, reading guides, glossaries, etc. 

 Now, educators can generate highly engaging online courses for students by adding VR experiences. 

Hence, it saves educators time and effort, speeding up their content production. 

3. Automate grading and feedback  

The traditional grading process was time-consuming for educators as they had to do manual assignments and assessments, leading to feedback delays.  

At the same time, Generative AI solves the problem of evaluating assignments by automating the grading process and reducing educators’ workloads.  

Unlike the traditional grading process, Generative AI proves to be a game changer for Edtech startups as it provides detailed feedback to each student.  

It assesses their assessments, identifies key areas of improvement and provides personalized feedback so they can learn from their mistakes. 

Take the case of Cerego, a California-based company that uses Generative AI to provide personalized learning experiences to students. 

Its knowledge bank allows learners to identify the knowledge gaps (their strengths and weaknesses) based on the concepts they learn in each module. 

Then, it automatically creates a detailed learning plan for each student based on their levels of memory retention.  

4. Create course content automatically  

Earlier, educators need to think a lot as to how they can come up with informative cum engaging course content. 

Generative AI supercharges the learning experience by designing something that will stick with the learners for a long time. 

Moreover, it saves educators time in creating content as it quickly generates a variety of learning materials for students, such as quizzes, course content, practice problems, videos, or assessment content.  

This way, teachers can solely focus on planning various strategies to engage the students. 

Let’s take the example of Nolej AI, a platform that helps educators design interactive content in seconds for learners, including games, videos, flashcards, quizzes, etc.  

5. Update your course content  

As information is available online, it takes time for course creators to update it. It becomes important for instructors to update their course content and introduce new lessons or topics that adapt to ever-changing educational landscapes.  

By using Generative AI in edtech, educators can work on refining the existing content and update the course content in one go per the industry’s latest trends. 

Benefits of Generative AI in Education 

Let’s talk about a few benefits that you will get by leveraging Generative AI for your edtech startup-  

1. Intelligent tutoring system  

Unlike traditional tutoring systems, intelligent tutoring systems are advanced technologies that use AI to provide personalized feedback to learners.  

These modern technologies transformed the way learning took place earlier without the involvement of human teachers. 

In the case of personalized tutoring, students can ask their questions, get a customized curriculum and even receive real-time feedback from a virtual tutor.  

Research studies state that students who receive personalized tutoring support improve their reading skills by over 50%.  

For Instance – ChatGPT acts as a personalized tutor for learners by guiding them on course-related topics, writing content on specific topics or providing customized responses.  

2. Personalized learning path  

If you are looking for a sure-shot way to improve your student outcome, creating personalized learning paths for students matters the most. 

Edtech startups and other businesses can leverage Generative AI in Highereducation to create customized curricula for students based on their test scores and learning behavior.  

This makes the learning process more engaging as they can learn the concepts at their own pace.  

3. Generates course content  

With the wide availability of Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google Bard, etc., content creation has become easier for educators and students. 

The course creators must input the ideas and give specific details to ChatGPT; this tool will flesh out relevant details.  

For instance, educators can generate content for planning course material and getting scripts for course lectures, quizzes, worksheets, etc. 

Hence, instructors can save their hours and put more emphasis on other important tasks. 

4. Language translation of educational resources 

The focus of Generative AI in education is to make education more accessible.  

With AI-powered translation tools, students can better understand complex topics by accessing content in their native language. 

Hence, Generative AI tools help educators design pronunciation guides and language exercises for learners to get a hang on multiple languages.  

This way, learners gain an inclusive environment by learning the educational content in various languages. 

Limitations of Generative AI in Education  

Here are a few limitations that Generative AI creates for education startups-  

1. Biased output  

If the model is trained on biased data, it results in biased output.  

Similarly, if the model produces biased results, it will affect students’ learning experience as and when they use it. 

Consider a response that ChatGPT provides to students –  

White or Asian males should be the next generation scientists.  

The above-mentioned statement is deeply rooted in biased data, promoting a sense of unfairness among learners. 

Therefore, the data on which the model is trained should come from diverse backgrounds such as ethnicity, race, gender, etc. Moreover, data should be carefully examined to avoid any biases in future.  

2. Lack of creativity   

Although Generative AI in Edtech has multiple use cases, it lacks creativity in producing the out of box or innovative solutions that a human teacher does. 

Meanwhile, human teachers and educators are considered creative nerds.  

These models have limited data as they rely on human-generated content. So, if humans don’t produce more content, these models won’t be able to provide further information.  

3. Security and privacy  

When AI is integrated into education, policymakers and institutions should frame clear guidelines to safeguard student information.   

There is a high probability that hackers can hack these models, and as they are trained on vast amounts of data, security breaches can take place.  

Wrapping up  

Now, you have understood how Generative AI in education amplifies the course creator and student experience by going beyond the traditional classroom environment.  

By integrating AI-powered technology, edtech startups can unlock new possibilities, such as creating personalized lessons, designing courses, automating grading and feedback, etc.   

Though it comes with several challenges, Edtech startups can use it best by establishing proper guidelines and procedures.  

At BigOhTech, our dedicated team of AI/ML experts are proficient in creating generative AI solutions for your business.  

As an AI/ML development company, our LLM trainers are ready to bring their years of expertise and add value to your organization.  

Ready to transform your business with our Generative AI services?