The Center for Universal Education at Brookings launched its Global Task Force on AI in Education in September 2024 during the U.N. General Assembly meetings in New York. The task force is made up of education leaders and artificial intelligence experts from across government, multi-lateral institutions, civil society, teacher organizations, philanthropy, business and grassroots student and family networks.
Generative AI in education holds incredible potential to transform education by, among other things, unleashing creativity, enhancing individualized learning, improving accessibility to educational resources, reaching the most marginalized and alleviating administrative burdens on teachers. However, every technology brings with it potential, and often unanticipated, risks. If generative AI is not used well in education—from early childhood to school and transition to work—it has the potential to increase student disengagement, reduce critical thinking, expand inequities and undermine learner resilience and agency.
The goal of the task force is to help ensure generative AI can be harnessed to transform education for the better by unlocking every young person’s full potential. To do this, the task force will conduct a “pre-mortem” on AI and education to anticipate potential negative consequences of generative AI in education in order to mitigate risks and optimize the benefits. History shows us this is a wise course of action. We have to look no further than the current discussion of social media’s impacts on the wellbeing of young people.
Pre-mortem analysis on generative AI in education
A pre-mortem is a forward-looking thought experiment conducted with a team. It starts with a simple future-oriented premise: “It’s (2035). Our innovation, product, or project has failed. Why?” Team members brainstorm potential causes of failure, discuss how and why these issues might arise, and group the causes into categories. From there, they work backwards to the present, prioritizing the most critical risks and identifying actions to begin to address these challenges now.
For this Brookings task force’s convenings and research, the pre-mortem is especially valuable in addressing the evolution of GAIED in that it helps us systematically identify how AI might fail to meet its promises while enabling us to identify the strategies that educators, parents, policymakers, and the private sector can take now to prevent failures and enable success.
The taskforce is discussing these two questions:
- What are the potential risks generative AI poses to children’s education from early childhood through secondary school?
- Assuming these potential failures, what can we begin to do now to prevent them and maximize AI’s potential benefits?
Task force timeline
The taskforce convenes over 18 months, conducting research and consultations, and sharing insights for feedback along the way.
- January – June 2025. Hear from teachers, students, and parents to identify risks and opportunities.
- July 2025 – Forecast risks and opportunities of generative AI in education.
- September 2025 – Draft final report.
- January 2026 – Task force final report launch.