The Gates Foundation has pledged $1 billion to develop and deliver artificial intelligence tools, with $400 million earmarked for education despite growing questions over the impact of classroom technology.
The funding will support AI tutoring intended to tailor learning for pupils in schools in the United States and abroad. It forms part of the foundation’s wider education strategy, announced in July, which aims to help up to 10 million more Americans gain “credentials of value” by 2045.
The investment comes as concerns mount that expanding access to digital tools does not necessarily translate into better learning. Test scores have fallen among some pupils during the period in which computer-based assessments became widespread, while neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath has argued that the extensive use of laptops in education may have weakened students’ cognitive abilities.
“Evidence indicates that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them,” Mr Horvath wrote in testimony presented to the US Senate Committee on Commerce earlier this year.
New York City has already adopted a more cautious approach. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and schools chancellor Kamar Samuels announced a one-year pause on student-facing generative AI for pupils from 2-K through eighth grade, affecting nearly 600,000 children.
“The tech industry wants us to believe that AI-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary,” Mr Mamdani said. “We do not see it that way.” He said the pause would give the city time to study the technology’s effects.
Teachers warn AI funding may widen education gaps
The Gates Foundation said its programme would focus on schools serving large numbers of low-income pupils. Tools would be tested alongside teacher training and assessed by independent researchers before any wider rollout.
Its strategy acknowledges that “too many tools have been adopted without evidence they work” and says teachers must “remain central”. The foundation says the investment is intended to accelerate learning and help pupils who have fallen behind through additional repetition and practice.
Siobhan Casey, a teacher and school leader with 21 years’ experience, said AI could assist with lesson planning and administrative tasks but should not be treated as a substitute for professional judgement.
“I still need to check its accuracy, decide whether it supports the learning objective, and make sure it provides the right level of challenge for my students,” said Ms Casey, principal of Crimson Global Academy’s Greenwich Campus. “AI can support teacher expertise, but it cannot replace it.”
Amy McBride, a teacher at a special education school in Florida, said schools needed more than access to the technology itself.
“Handing a school an AI tool doesn’t mean teachers suddenly have the time, training or support to use it well,” she said.
Ms McBride also warned that pupils most in need of help might require the greatest adult guidance to use AI effectively. “Technology can be a powerful equalizer, but only if we don’t mistake access to the technology for access to a great education,” she said.
The foundation argues that its commitment addresses a failure in the market, because the people most in need of useful technology have the least influence over where investment is directed.
Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and chair of the Gates Foundation, said: “Left to the market alone, the most capable tools will be built first for the people and institutions most able to pay for them—not necessarily for those who could benefit most.”
Dora Palfi, chief executive and co-founder of education technology company Imagi, said lower-resourced schools could struggle to use the funding for its intended purpose. She said many schools first needed to address literacy and numeracy, potentially leaving better-equipped districts best placed to move quickly.
“The danger here is that the exact funding made to close a divide could end up widening it,” Ms Palfi said.
Salena Davis, a history teacher at Laurel Springs School, questioned whether apparent improvements linked to AI would endure. “The improved outcomes may only be short-term in nature and are not genuinely demonstrating mastery-based learning,” she said.
She added that pupils with weaker foundations might be less able to recognise inaccurate or incomplete AI-generated answers and could therefore accept them without question.
The Gates Foundation said its pilot schemes would be assessed by outside researchers, including a Johns Hopkins study of one tool. The evaluations will examine whether early results are sustained across different schools, with success measured by whether pupils who have fallen behind catch up rather than simply by overall score increases.
Ms McBride said AI had nevertheless helped some of her pupils by offering another way to ask questions, receive explanations and work at their own pace. It had also saved her time when preparing materials and adapting lessons.
“The biggest change wasn’t that AI started doing the teaching,” she said. “It gave me more time to teach.”
