Generative artificial intelligence has entered higher education with astonishing speed, provoking both excitement and anxiety. Much of the public debate has centred on how students might use – or misuse – these tools. Concerns about academic integrity, assessment and originality dominate the conversation.
Yet that focus risks overlooking a more important question: how might AI support the everyday work of educators? Used thoughtfully, AI has the potential to strengthen academic practice itself, helping educators focus more fully on the parts of teaching that cultivate human intelligence in students.
The challenge is not whether universities adopt AI; that process is already under way. The real question is whether the technology is used in ways that deepen the human relationships, judgement and intellectual engagement that sit at the heart of higher education.
Supporting the work of educators
At the University of East London, our approach to AI begins with a simple principle: technology should support academic practice, not replace it. We are currently piloting AI-assisted approaches to student engagement, marking and grading across a small number of modules. In each case, academic judgement remains firmly with the educator. The role of AI is to assist, not decide.
One area where this is already proving valuable is feedback. Providing thoughtful, constructive feedback is one of the most important aspects of teaching. It helps students understand not only where their work stands, but how their thinking can develop. Yet detailed feedback is also time-intensive, particularly when academics are working across large cohorts.
AI tools can assist by drafting structured feedback and identifying patterns across a group of assignments. The academic then reviews, interprets and refines that feedback before it reaches students. Responsibility never leaves the educator. What changes is how academic effort is spent. Instead of devoting time to repetitive drafting, academics can focus more closely on the intellectual substance of a student’s work – what it reveals, how it might improve, and where the student can grow.In other words, AI can help free time for the part of teaching that matters most: thoughtful academic judgement.
A second example lies in student engagement and support. We are currently developing a Personalised AI Learning Assistant in partnership with AWS. The system brings together signals from attendance, engagement and assessment to highlight when a student may be struggling. Crucially, the system does not make decisions. Instead, it surfaces insights that help academic advisers and support teams see patterns earlier than they otherwise might. That allows staff to reach out sooner and hold more meaningful conversations with students – conversations that can help someone regain confidence, reconnect with their studies, or navigate a difficult period.
In this sense, the technology does not replace human interaction; it enables it. By reducing administrative friction and connecting information that often sits in separate systems, AI allows educators to focus more on mentoring, dialogue and tailored academic guidance.
The human work of teaching
These examples illustrate a broader point. The most valuable aspects of university teaching have always been deeply human. Educators do far more than deliver information. They challenge assumptions, guide students through uncertainty, encourage intellectual risk-taking, and help learners develop the confidence to think independently.
Yet over time, many academics have found their work increasingly shaped by administrative complexity and fragmented systems. Time that might once have been spent discussing ideas with students is often consumed by processes that sit around teaching rather than within it. Used well, AI can help rebalance that equation. By automating routine tasks and surfacing useful insight, it can create something that universities increasingly lack: time for meaningful academic interaction.
To understand why this matters, it is helpful to distinguish between artificial intelligence and what I describe as Actual (or Authentic) Human Intelligence (AHI). Artificial intelligence operates through statistical pattern recognition across vast datasets. It identifies correlations and produces outputs based on probability. Human intelligence is something different. It is embodied, relational and rooted in lived experience. It integrates cognition with emotion, memory, perception and ethical judgement.
Humans care, doubt, imagine and take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. We navigate ambiguity and make decisions despite uncertainty. These qualities are central to education. The purpose of the university has never been simply to transmit information. It is to cultivate the human capacity to think critically, question assumptions and develop new ideas. AI cannot replace that process. But it can support it.
Assistance not authority
For universities, the guiding principle should be simple: AI must remain an assistant to human intelligence, not an authority over it. When AI is treated as a shortcut to answers, learning risks becoming shallow and mechanical. But when it supports educators in their work, by reducing friction, revealing insight and freeing time for discussion, it can strengthen the educational experience.
The educator’s role therefore becomes even more important. Students need guidance in interpreting AI-generated material, questioning its assumptions and using it as a tool for exploration rather than a substitute for thinking. That kind of judgement cannot be automated. It must be cultivated through conversation, mentorship and intellectual challenge.
Seen in this light, AI may offer an unexpected opportunity. For many academics, the most rewarding aspects of university life have always been relational: discussing ideas with students, helping them work through difficult concepts, watching their thinking evolve.
Yet those moments can easily be crowded out by administrative pressures and fragmented systems. If AI can reduce some of that burden, it may help universities reconnect with their core purpose.
Higher education has never been about the efficient production of information. Its purpose is the cultivation of human intelligence through sustained engagement between teachers, students and ideas. Artificial intelligence cannot replace that work, but used wisely, it may help create the conditions in which it can flourish.
