Let’s be honest: teaching is messy. Students arrive with literacy and numeracy levels years apart, emotional and social challenges, and diverse learning needs. No AI, not even the smartest chatbot can automatically solve these realities.

The potential of AI chatbots is huge, but only if we design them for the real classroom:

         *   Real-time educator alerts: Teachers should know instantly if a student is off-task, misusing the AI, or struggling so interventions happen in the moment, not after the fact.

        *   Context-aware guidance: Chatbots should adapt not only to academic levels but also to social-emotional signals, recognising when students need support or encouragement.

        *   Built-in scaffolding: AI should guide learning rather than give answers, reinforcing reasoning, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

        *   Ethical and safe by design: Systems must embed guardrails to protect students and promote responsible use.


Reality: Chatbots are amplifiers, not replacements. They do NOT dominate lessons and are NOT used in every lesson! Teachers remain the mentors, facilitators, and human heart of learning. AI handles the personalisation, the adaptive support, and the repetitive tasks that eat into teaching time.

The classroom of the future is human + AI, designed for equity, real-world complexity, and deep learning. If we get this right, AI won’t just change schools, it will unlock every student’s potential.

For the remaining states of Australia. I share your caution about AI chatbots in schools, but let's be honest: bureaucracy and insufficient resources are what's really stifling progress, not genuine safety concerns. While NSW and South Australia have moved forward with secure platforms, other states remain paralysed. Meanwhile, students already use AI without guidance, and teachers struggle with workloads AI could reduce. We need to face reality; AI belongs in education and it's already there. We need controlled exploration, not blanket inhibition. Our students can't wait for perfect conditions. Let's allocate resources to do this properly rather than using their absence as justification for inaction.