Khan Academy rolls out AI-powered teaching tools as school districts scale up adoption
- Editorial Team SDG4
- Sep 29, 2025
- 2 min read
As education systems worldwide grapple with teacher shortages, rising workloads and widening inequalities, Khan Academy is making a bold move: expanding the reach of Khanmigo, its AI tutor and teaching-assistant platform, into classrooms at scale. In the 2024–25 academic year, usage leapt from 40,000 to 700,000 K-12 students, with projections to surpass one million in 2025–26.
This surge underscores a broader shift: artificial intelligence is no longer a speculative add-on in education, but increasingly one of its infrastructure tools.
From pilot experiment to systemic deployment
Khanmigo first emerged in 2023 as an experiment in AI tutoring, designed to support both learners and teachers. Initially confined to pilot projects, it is now used across hundreds of school districts in the United States and has begun reaching classrooms in countries such as India, Brazil and the Philippines.
Partnerships with technology firms have enabled the platform to scale more rapidly. While student tutoring features are typically offered through school and district programmes, Khan Academy has made its teacher-support tools widely available for free, lowering barriers to entry.
How it is reshaping teaching and learning
Khanmigo relies on large language models to engage students in guided questioning rather than supplying direct answers, encouraging critical thinking and persistence. For teachers, the system generates lesson plans, rubrics, grouping strategies and progress summaries, reducing the administrative burden that consumes much of their time.
The organisation describes Khanmigo as a “force multiplier” for teachers: not a replacement, but an assistant that extends their reach. Its design follows a framework built on principles of transparency, equity, accountability and learner autonomy.
Risks, caveats and pressures in deployment
The rapid spread of AI in classrooms also brings challenges. Research indicates that over-reliance on AI during practice can reduce performance in exams taken without assistance. There are also risks of unequal access, particularly between schools with different levels of digital infrastructure.
Teachers themselves need support in adopting these tools, since their effectiveness depends heavily on integration into teaching practice. Broader concerns include data privacy, bias in AI systems and the risk of diminishing the role of human interaction in education.
What this means for the future
Khan Academy’s deployment of Khanmigo signals a decisive test for AI in education. If implemented responsibly, such systems could help overworked teachers, personalise learning for millions and bridge gaps in access to quality resources.
Yet success will ultimately be judged by outcomes. Equity, transparency and robust evaluation must remain at the heart of this expansion. Rather than replacing teachers, AI may become one of their most valuable allies in making learning more inclusive and adaptive.
More information: https://www.khanacademy.org/
For further reading and sources on this development and the broader debate around AI in education, see: