A high-level dialogue on the future of education in the age of artificial intelligence has called for urgent systemic reforms to ensure AI-enabled education delivers equitable and measurable learning outcomes at scale.
Hosted by Reliance Foundation in partnership with Central Square Foundation, the half-day roundtable was held at Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai, as an official pre-summit event of the India AI Impact Summit 2026. The convening brought together over 50 leaders from philanthropy, EdTech companies, academia, and the private sector to examine how AI and education technology can be harnessed to improve learning outcomes while addressing equity and scale.
The dialogue concluded with a synthesis of strategic insights intended to inform national and global discussions at the India AI Impact Summit 2026. Participants stressed that sustained collaboration between governments, innovators, researchers, funders, and the private sector is essential to ensure AI-enabled EdTech strengthens education systems rather than remaining limited to standalone tools or pilot projects.
At a time when AI is rapidly reshaping education globally, the discussion focused not only on innovation but also on impact—particularly how promising AI-enabled solutions can move beyond pilots to deliver inclusive and scalable learning gains in low-resource and multilingual contexts.
Reimagining Education for an AI-First World
Discussions reflected global priorities grounded in local realities, including aligning AI tools with learning science, safeguarding equity and inclusion, and measuring success through learning outcomes rather than reach alone. Participants noted that technology adoption, by itself, does not automatically translate into improved learning.
In the keynote address, Shailesh Kumar, chief data scientist at Jio and dean at Jio Institute, reflected on global debates around Education 4.0 and the need to rethink education systems from first principles. “It is time to re-imagine our Education System – what should it look like if it was born today – in the post connectivity and AI era? It is time to bring Personalised Education to every child on the planet,” he said.
Kumar also emphasised the need to move away from one-size-fits-all, “just-in-case” education models towards personalised, student-centric systems focused on mastery learning and higher-order thinking skills, enabled by AI at scale.
Experts at the roundtable discussed emerging use cases for AI-enabled learning, including personalised instruction, teacher support, assessment, and home-based learning, particularly in early childhood education and foundational literacy and numeracy. Attention was also given to the challenges of scaling such solutions, including institutional adoption, cost structures, multilingual content, data infrastructure, and the realities of deploying AI within government systems and community-based learning environments.
Philanthropy’s Role in Scaling Impact
A central theme of the dialogue was the role of philanthropy in shaping the next phase of AI and EdTech in India. Participants highlighted that philanthropy can play a catalytic role not only by funding innovation, but by de-risking early-stage ideas, supporting long-term evidence generation, strengthening organisational capacity, and convening stakeholders around shared priorities.
Insights were shared from the LiftEd EdTech Accelerator, a multi-year philanthropic initiative that has reached over 3 million children, particularly in underserved school and home-learning contexts. The initiative is supported by founding partners Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Reliance Foundation, and UBS Optimus Foundation, and is led by Central Square Foundation and British Asian Trust.
“Building AI and EdTech for impact is not just about the technology itself – it is about understanding the ground realities of implementing it in classrooms, homes, and communities. Learnings from the LiftEd EdTech Accelerator show how contextualised design and evidence-led approaches can support quality learning at scale,” said Vanita Sharma, advisor – strategic initiatives at Reliance Foundation.
From Innovation to System-Wide Adoption
Participants agreed that scaling effective AI-enabled learning solutions is fundamentally a systems challenge, requiring alignment across policy, pedagogy, delivery models, research, and ecosystem partnerships. Designing for India’s diversity—including multilingual content, low-bandwidth or offline access, shared-device use, and alignment with state curricula—was identified as critical.
“The next frontier for EdTech is not just innovation, but scaling proven, contextualised solutions through government systems and community adoption to drive learning outcomes at scale,” said Gouri Gupta, senior project director, EdTech at Central Square Foundation.
The dialogue reinforced a shared view that AI and EdTech must act as a force multiplier for equity rather than efficiency alone. Participants underscored that teachers and parents remain central to learning, with AI serving as an enabling tool through personalisation, feedback, and data-driven insights.
As India positions itself as a global leader in AI for social impact, participants noted that such cross-sector dialogues are vital for translating innovation into evidence, and evidence into system-wide adoption. The insights from the roundtable will feed into deliberations at the India AI Impact Summit 2026, shaping conversations on the future of education in the AI era.
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