Google for Education: AI is already reshaping India’s classrooms
According to the World Economic Forum, nearly 40% of core job skills are expected to change in the next five years, an urgent reality driven by AI. For a country like India, with over 260 million students in one of the world’s largest education ecosystems, this transition represents a structural transformation in how learning is delivered and experienced.
This challenge set the stage for the recent EDNXT Bangalore summit, where Khushboo Goel Chowdhary, Secretary, Higher Education Department, Government of Karnataka, and Manoj Kumar Meena, Secretary, Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Department, Government of Karnataka and other leaders from Government, Higher Education, and EdTech gathered to map out the future.
In a defining keynote, Sanjay Jain, Head of Google for Education, India, explained that AI is no longer a speculative technology but an operational reality, already shaping how we teach and learn.
From digitisation to intelligent, AI-enabled learning
For over a decade, education technology focused largely on digitisation—moving content from paper to screens. Today, that evolution is entering a new phase. Artificial intelligence is enabling more intelligent learning experiences that personalise content, support research, and enhance how educators teach and assess.
As Sanjay Jain highlighted, modern AI is increasingly multimodal, capable of working across text, images, audio, and video—mirroring how students naturally engage with information. The goal is not simply to automate answers, but to support deeper understanding and critical thinking.
He explained this with an example from Yenepoya Dental College, where students use ‘Gems’—custom AI assistants—to practise diagnosing and treating simulated patients. These simulations allow learners to build clinical reasoning in a safe environment, helping universities move from passive content delivery to more applied, experiential learning.
Google for Education also showcased tools such as NotebookLM, Deep Research, and Guided Learning, built for institutional use with enterprise-grade data protections. In education environments where trust and privacy are critical, these safeguards ensure that institutional and learner data is not reviewed by humans or used to train AI models. The real opportunity lies in delivering intelligence at scale, aligned with priorities such as NEP 2020, which calls for more learner-centric, technology-enabled education.
Collaboration is the pathway to scale
Achieving this transformation at scale requires deep collaboration. The address highlighted Google’s partnerships with institutions like IIT Madras and AI4Bharat. Initiatives like Indic Arena, developed with Google Cloud, were showcased as vital for making AI accessible across India’s diverse languages, ensuring that technology promotes inclusion, not inequality.
The message from EDNXT was clear: The future of learning won’t be defined by technology alone, but by how thoughtfully we use it to deepen learning, strengthen teaching, and save valuable time. In doing so, AI becomes a powerful catalyst for unlocking student potential, rather than an end in itself.
What this shift means for the future of learning?
The Google for Education address at EDNXT Bangalore brought clarity to what the AI transition in education truly represents. Artificial intelligence has moved firmly beyond pilots and proofs of concept into everyday academic practice, touching classrooms, research workflows, and institutional decision-making. Yet, the session made it equally clear that AI must be designed to extend human capability rather than replace professional judgment, pedagogy, or mentorship.
Equally central to this shift is trust. Responsible, secure, and ethical use of AI was positioned as non-negotiable, particularly in learning environments where data integrity and student confidence are paramount. The address reinforced that meaningful scale will only be achieved through collaboration across universities, technology providers, and policymakers, ensuring alignment with national priorities.
As AI reshapes how knowledge is created, accessed, and applied, the concluding message was unambiguous: The future of learning will not be defined by technology alone, but by how thoughtfully institutions deploy it to deepen learning, strengthen teaching, and save valuable time. In doing so, AI becomes a catalyst for unlocking student potential across classrooms and campuses, rather than an end in itself.
