AI Agents Reveal New Tech Possibilities in K–12 Education

Agentic AI workflows can help schools break down silos and use their data sets more proactively.

Wendy Jones is a K–12 Education Strategist Manager for CDW•G.

The current momentum of artificial intelligence technologies shows no signs of slowing down. IT circles are finding new use cases and AI solutions all the time. Schools, meanwhile, can’t keep up with this explosive growth due to their slower rate of change.

This has created a huge gap between school systems’ ability to change quickly and the speed of change in AI. One of AI’s next iterations, however, may help schools close that gap.

What Is Agentic AI, and How Has It Evolved?

In 2024, we started seeing single agents. I might take the data set of a school policy and create an agent to analyze the policy and make insights; for example, does dress code policy impact student behaviors? AI agents have the added capability of analyzing data and providing deeper insights.

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Agentic AI adapts to changing environments and events, according to software maker UiPath. “It relies on patterns and likelihoods to make decisions and take actions” and “powers intelligent systems capable of understanding context, adapting to new information, and collaborating with humans to solve complex challenges,” the company notes.

Currently, we see chat managers that go out and talk to many different agents, versus going to all the individual data sources. This is where we’re going to see AI take off, with the ability to build these smaller agents and something that connects to them.

How Do AI Agents Work for K–12 School Systems?

A lot of tasks that schools do in AI are reactive, so whenever we can use predictive analytics to better align that personalization to students, we should.

LEARN MORE: Bring AI into your K–12 district using this advice.

Say we want to increase student attendance; the agentic workflow can look at student attendance data, historical test data and instructional strategies, pulling all of that together to make a predictive analysis and create a strategy to increase attendance.

Imagine the many different silos and data sets a school system has. AI agents are putting all of that data at our fingertips to inform decision-making like never before, and in a fraction of the time.

Considerations for Schools Using AI and AI Agents

The security concerns with agentic AI are largely the same as with earlier AI technologies. Don’t let your guard down; the data is the data. You need to make sure you understand that and you’re keeping it private.

WATCH THE WEBINAR: Leverage AI in K–12 education.

Digital Promise has a great framework that describes three areas districts need to focus on:

how to use AI, how to understand it and how to evaluate it. It prepares school leaders to help users understand what AI is and determine when to use it. It’s a great resource for building out AI literacy.

If schools aren’t sure where to start their AI journey, CDW can help. We work with partners like ALP (Advanced Learning Partners) to help schools learn how to assess AI readiness and figure out the instructional and technical aspects they need to have in place for success.

This article is part of the ConnectIT: Bridging the Gap Between Education and Technology series.