How AI Can Improve Learning While Ensuring Privacy in 2025

According to Statista, over 86% of students reported using AI tools in their schoolwork, with almost a quarter of them using it on a daily basis. This reflects students’ willingness to adopt innovative technologies like AI for their learning and development.

While AI is not able to mimic and replace the invaluable student-teacher relationship, it can help educators implement a holistic pedagogical approach, ultimately bridging some of the existing gaps in education. Data from a UK government survey conducted back in 2023, revealed that over 47% of educators had already incorporated AI practices into their classrooms and teaching. As AI becomes more sophisticated, the industry should find more ways to leverage the potential of the technology.

Three key benefits of AI

1. Personalised learning

AI, particularly GenAI in education, has led to enhancements in lesson planning, resource creation and administration efficiency. The one-size-fits-all approach often adopted in education has left students with the perception that their needs are being overlooked, and AI can serve as a springboard for making education more accessible. By accounting for personal learning styles and paces, students gain access to a customised learning schedule visible to teachers that helps them track progress in real-time. By leveraging a continuous feedback loop driven by AI, teachers can identify students’ strengths and weaknesses. As a result, they can provide students with the tools to offer tailored support and maximise engagement and motivation.

2. Streamlined administration

Education, at its core, is a blend of data and creativity, where student results measure the effectiveness of both teaching and learning. AI is able to support this critical function and automate laborious tasks such as writing letters and emails to parents, developing marketing resources for educational institutions and more. More importantly, it enables educators to develop a customised learning agenda that matches students’ objectives while complementing teaching styles.

3. Advanced planning

Recent data indicates that among those educators experimenting with advanced technologies in education, AI is making a difference in automating curriculum planning and lesson content creation. Striking a balance between automation and educators’ unique insights makes a difference in the complexity and comprehensiveness of the learning material provided to students. Beyond curriculum and lesson planning, AI also offers extra support for students with specific learning needs, from educational disabilities to personal learning preferences. The scope of AI’s potential in education is vast and will likely have an even deeper disruptive effect in future years.

However, with the projected growth of AI adoption in education comes an increased need to address potential risks. AI malpractice and security risks could do more harm than good when such innovative technologies are used in the classroom. As AI becomes an integral part of education strategies, businesses must find the right balance between harnessing the technology and protecting sensitive information.

Avoiding security risks 

Cyberattacks worldwide are on the rise. In the Global Cybersecurity Outlook for 2025, the World Economic Forum highlights that cyberattacks are among the top ten global risks of greatest concern for the next decade. The report also emphasises that AI is likely to have the most significant impact on cybersecurity, which is especially relevant for educators and educational institutions looking to adopt innovative technologies. With only 37% of businesses adopting AI reporting that they have tested the security of AI tools before deployment, it highlights a critical gap between cybersecurity measures and the implementation of AI without first establishing the necessary cyber resilience.

Without robust privacy measures in place, educational organisations risk exposing student data to breaches resulting in identity theft and misuse. Beyond the reputational damage, data breaches put vast amounts of sensitive student and staff data at risk. It becomes even more important to stay vigilant about cybersecurity risks and potential threats.

The role of Zero Trust Architecture

With cyberattacks becoming increasingly unpredictable and severe, embracing a holistic approach by combining advanced security solutions, like Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), can help educational institutions address threats before they develop.

ZTA is based on the principle that no entity, whether internal or external to a network, should be trusted by default. Instead, every request is uniquely verified before access is granted. By leveraging ZTA, institutions can minimise the risk of unauthorised access and limit the damage caused by potential breaches.

Following the principle of least privilege, ZTA-based solutions ensure that each user, regardless of their status, is required to pass through the same level of security authentication at all times. These solutions also allow organisations to control access at a granular level. As a result, users are only granted access to data and applications that are strictly necessary for them to perform their jobs. This can significantly reduce the threat surface for educational institutions, allowing them to minimise the spreading of cyberattacks.

Beyond enabling educational institutions to safeguard against potential infiltrations, they can also continuously monitor network traffic, device and user activity, enabling a much swifter response when suspicious activity is detected. 

The road to ZTA

Implementing a full-scale ZTA can take time. Educational institutions can begin their journey to achieving a comprehensive and advanced ZTA deployment by assessing their current security posture. This involves conducting a full-scale evaluation of users, services, data locations, and user identities within the educational network. Given the growing prevalence of remote working, institutions must account for the increased attack surface associated with data access across multiple devices, particularly those outside the institution’s secure network.

A key first step in reducing the attack surface is understanding user behaviour among students and educators, ensuring that systems are only accessible on devices with up-to-date systems and security. The next step is implementing strong policies around data privacy that need to be applied to all identities within the education network. This works especially well when devising authorisation mechanisms, as each request for data or services should be authorised against a policy. Strong data-sharing protocols are essential, especially when handling sensitive information.

Educational institutions can then escalate ZTA by deploying phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, session-based access and encrypted network traffic to ensure granular control over data access.

While implementing ZTA can be a complex process, partnering with experienced IT providers who follow strict ZTA guidelines can make the transition smoother. They help integrate security measures with educational systems effectively, ensuring strong data protection without compromising functionality or user accessibility.

Looking ahead

As the cyber threat landscape evolves, educational institutions can mitigate risks, safeguard sensitive data, and ensure the integrity of their systems by adopting a holistic cybersecurity strategy leveraging security technologies based on ZTA. This approach not only enhances security but also fosters a trusted environment where both educators and students can fully benefit from the opportunities AI presents, without compromising privacy or safety.

The post How AI Can Improve Learning While Ensuring Privacy in 2025 appeared first on TecHR.