Are we designing the future of education? Or is emerging technology designing it for us?
Education is at a defining moment. AI and emerging technologies present an urgent choice: design to simply accelerate efficiency and scale within existing systems, or design to catalyze a fundamentally different future for learning. In December 2025, Intentional Futures (iF) brought together an intentional group of 40+ top cross-sector leaders—superintendents, AI researchers, philanthropic leaders, early childhood innovators, EdTech builders, and policy architects. Across the conversation, a clear throughline emerged: this moment is not just about whether AI will shape education, but how, by whom, and in service of what. There was a shared urgency around the need to collectively define the future and purpose of education, and a unified desire to shift the momentum of market forces, tech hype, or the familiar cycles of educational reform. This moment holds both deep risk and unprecedented opportunity: Are we using this moment to truly revolutionize education, or just digitize what we’ve always done?
We’ve captured insights, trends in AI innovation, and emerging principles for action here in this report.
