AI Resilience Report forTeaching Assistants, All Other

Right now, AI is mostly augmenting the people who work in classrooms rather than replacing them. The most common AI tools in schools help with planning, paperwork, and material prep — exactly the lighter "behind the scenes" tasks a teaching assistant might pitch in on. A RAND survey found that in 2025, 54 percent of students and 53 percent of English language arts, math, and science teachers indicated that they used AI for school — increases of more than 15 percentage points compared with the past one to two years, showing how quickly classrooms are adopting the technology ^[1].

Educators are using tools like Canva AI to spin up worksheets in multiple languages or differentiate them for varied learning needs, and Google NotebookLM to turn dense chapters into podcasts that help students prepare — work that overlaps with preparing teaching materials.

But the human side of the job is much harder to automate. Microsoft's research on real Copilot conversations found that on the flip side, there are some career paths with low AI exposure that are growing in demand, and the most-affected jobs are heavily text- and information-based roles like translators, writers, and customer service reps ^[2], not jobs that involve physically supervising kids in hallways, cafeterias, and on field trips. As one NEA teacher put it, "A tool helps you get there… But it takes the teacher to guide that process, and I just don't ever see an AI program doing that as effectively as a human in a classroom." Brookings researchers similarly argue that some jobs should be done by humans — jobs that build human relationships and are important to society, like teaching and care-economy professions ^[3].

Adoption inside schools is moving fast on the tool side but slowly on the staffing side. EdWeek reports that more teachers are using AI in their classrooms ^[4] as free chatbots and lesson-planning apps become widely available — that's commercial availability working in AI's favor. However, RAND also notes that as of spring 2025, only 35 percent of district leaders reported providing students with training on AI, over 80 percent of students said teachers did not explicitly teach them how to use AI for schoolwork, and just 45 percent of principals reported having school or district policies on AI ^[1].

That guidance gap slows things down.

Labor market pressure also matters. Special education classrooms are already short-staffed: K-12 Dive reported that to fill special educator vacancies, schools often rely on teachers not certified in special education or hire outside contractors, so there's strong demand for human aides, not pressure to replace them. Socially and legally, unions are pushing for guardrails — the Washington Post's interactive on AI vulnerability ^[5] and the NEA's recommendation that districts assess risks such as data privacy concerns, racial bias, misinformation, plagiarism, and threats to jobs both signal that schools will adopt AI carefully.

The bottom line: AI will likely keep helping teaching assistants prep materials and track progress, but the human work of supervising, encouraging, and connecting with students remains very much yours to do.