Ed Tech Leaders Rank Generative AI as Top Tech Priority

In a recent CoSN survey, an overwhelming majority of ed tech leaders (94%) said they see AI as having a positive impact on education. Respondents ranked generative AI as their top tech priority, with 80% reporting their districts have gen AI initiatives underway, or plan to in the current school year.

Those findings and more are presented in the organization's 2025 State of EdTech District Leadership report, based on a survey of 645 ed tech leaders across the United States. The annual survey offers benchmarks on emerging artificial intelligence technologies, evolving cybersecurity measures, connectivity challenges, and other issues faced by today's schools and districts.

Productivity was considered the top benefit of AI in education, cited by 43% of respondents. Other benefits included personalized education (30%), preparing students for the workforce (10%), and student tutoring (7%). Six percent of respondents saw no potential benefit to AI use.

Despite the perceived benefits of AI, respondents had a variety of concerns about the technology. Areas of greatest concern included:

  • AI enabling new forms of cyber attacks (cited by 60% of respondents);
  • AI's potential impact on student data privacy (45%)
  • Lack of teacher training for integrating AI into instruction (43%);
  • AI enabling new forms of cyber bullying (38%); and
  • Spread of false information (36%).

Ed tech leaders were least concerned about AI replacing teachers, with 86% of respondents saying they are not at all concerned on that front. Large majorities were also unconcerned about AI's impact on overall job loss (77%) or AI's ability to surpass humans (67%), the report noted.

A substantial portion of respondents (57%) said their district has integrated guidelines about generative AI into board-approved policies. The most common policies in place included:

  • Acceptable (or responsible) use policy (cited by 38% percent of respondents);
  • Academic integrity (32%);
  • New policy specific to generative AI (19%);
  • Data privacy policy (18%); and
  • Instructional material or technology adoption policy (12%).

Still, 43% of respondents said their district does not have any policies or guidelines for the use of generative AI.

The full report is available on the CoSN site here.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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