AI and education
Education faces deep challenges: the stranglehold of high-stakes examinations, endemic teacher burnout, the reduction of learning to measurable outcomes. Students increasingly turn to AI to get work done, to take shortcuts that risk bypassing genuine learning. This student use of AI exposes a deeper crisis. If machines can write essays, solve problems, and produce correct answers, what does it mean to be educated? What is distinctively human about thinking? These are not merely practical questions about how to prevent cheating. They are existential questions about what we are educating humans for. AI forces us back to first principles. What is education actually for? What kind of thinking, what kind of formation, what kind of human flourishing are we pursuing? These questions cannot be answered by better technology or stricter policies. They require us to articulate what is genuinely valuable in education and whether our current practices serve those values. Instead of a purely theoretical discussion, we want to focus on real experiences that already suggest positive and creative ways to address these challenges. Therein lies the opportunity for renewal.
SPEAKERS
Sir Anthony Seldon
Sir Anthony Seldon is a leading authority on all matters relating to
education, AI, Number 10 and Britain’s prime ministers. Over a career spanning four decades, he has written or edited more than 50 books, including best-selling insider accounts of the last seven prime ministers. He has served as honorary historian of Number 10 Downing Street and chair of the National Archives Trust, and has interviewed many of the most senior figures in British government over the past fifty years. His recent works include The Path of Peace (2022), Johnson at 10 (2023), Truss at 10 (2024), and The Path of Light (2025).
Alongside his writing, Sir Anthony has had a distinguished leadership career in education. He was a transformative headmaster at Brighton College and Wellington College for 20 years, served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham from 2015 to 2020, and was appointed Head of Epsom College in 2023. In 2024, he returned to Wellington College as Founding Director of Wellington College Education, leading its global development and shaping the future of education in the mid-21st century, with a particular focus on AI.
Chris Hack
Chris Hack is Director of Digital Innovation at Abingdon School, where he leads the practical implementation of AI tools across teaching, learning, and administrative operations. His work includes deploying an AI report-writing system now used by over 100 teachers, developing policy chatbots, and building staff training programmes that bridge the gap between emerging technology and everyday classroom practice. He also works directly with students, teaching them how to use AI well, helping them avoid over-reliance on it, and running courses where pupils build their own AI applications.
With over 17 years of teaching and leadership experience across independent schools, Chris is interested in the space between AI's promise and its classroom reality: what actually works, what doesn't, and what it means for the future of teaching and learning. He has spoken on AI in education at Oxford University and other professional forums.