When Linda Noble first heard a few years ago about how she could apply artificial intelligence to her role as a social studies high school teacher, one of her first thoughts was that it might prevent her early retirement.

Now Noble, who is 66 years old, said AI has allowed her to save seven to eight hours on a weekly basis at her current job teaching 9th and 10th graders at Brooklyn College Academy in New York City.   

“It’s not as physically and mentally and emotionally taxing on me, because I have a thought partner,” she said about how the teaching profession changed with the advent of AI. Noble also acknowledged, however, that AI use in classrooms requires careful guardrails and that teachers need to be mindful of when it is and isn't appropriate to use AI tools.

Can AI reduce teacher burnout?

AI offers promising solutions for reducing teacher stress and potentially keeping them in the education field longer, K-12 researchers say. 

How and whether AI can help teachers save time and be more efficient is a big question researchers are exploring, said Robin Lake, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. But it’s still unknown how much time teachers are actually saving with AI — and, ultimately, if AI is helping reduce their job burnout, she said.

The technology’s potential comes at a time when teacher burnout rates remain high, having slightly increased from 54% to 57% between 2021 and 2026, according to a Rand Corp. survey released this month. In that same survey, nearly 1 in 5 teachers during the 2025-26 school year reported that they planned to leave their current teaching jobs. 

By the time most teachers leave the school building, they’re going home with a lot of papers to grade and a lesson that needs to be planned for the next day, Noble said, adding that AI has allowed her to “get in front of” that leftover daily workload. 

The time Noble has saved using AI tools has allowed her to focus on building relationships with students, helping them develop social-emotional skills and holding more 1:1 student conferences, she said. The time saved has also helped Noble better prioritize her own well-being by having more time outside of work to take yoga and pilates classes regularly, she said. 

“It’s helping my own well-being, which is helping me have a better relationship with myself, my family, and then when I walk into a classroom,” Noble said. 

How can AI help teachers actually save time?

A common way teachers are using AI is to personalize instruction for students when lesson planning, Lake said. That could look like translating an assignment for a student who isn’t fluent in English or adjusting an assignment based on a student’s reading level, she said. 

Noble said she uses AI to create short videos to play in front of students at the beginning of class that explain the main themes of that day’s lesson, unit or project. While that video is playing, Noble is able to walk around the room and individually check in with students.

Noble has also tapped into AI tools to generate ideas for team-based class discussions using the Socratic method. During those exercises, students put away their computers to engage more directly and intentionally.

AI has further helped Noble create “micro tasks” for students, in which she divides students into small groups and has the AI tool generate different in-classroom assignments for each group to complete. 

The technology has also assisted Noble in developing and delivering feedback for students. Noble said that when she gives AI a rubric and an anonymous student’s completed work, the tool can provide a first draft of comments on an individual or aggregated level that she can then further finetune.

She added that her feedback explains to students what they did correctly on the assignment and why, as well as discuss an area for growth and an element in the assignment customized to their own learning. 

“My turnaround with the feedback is much better, and it also reflects my voice,” Noble said. 

She has also asked AI for feedback on her own teaching and to identify patterns for improvement. 

What’s needed to make this possible at scale?

It’s likely that most teachers currently using AI aren’t able to save as much time as Noble, researchers say, but the experimentation with the technology among teachers is likely to increase. Based on Rand Corp.’s research, a majority of teachers are likely still using AI tools once a month or less, said Sy Doan, a policy researcher at Rand Corp. and a professor of policy analysis at the Rand School of Public Policy.

Some reasons teachers are still dabbling with AI tools instead of integrating the technology into their core responsibilities is because AI guidance is inconsistent and lacking in many schools, researchers say. 

Schools should also be careful when implementing AI for teachers to ensure the technology is not adding to their workload when learning how to use it, Lake said. An outlying question for Lake when it comes to teachers’ use of AI is still, “Is it reducing their burnout, or does it add a layer of complexity?”

At the same time, Lake said, schools are also navigating a “techlash” in which community members are calling for limits on screen time in classrooms. While technology supports for teachers are growing, so is this pushback, she said.

In the end, Lake said she expects there to be a “reality check” that “AI is not going away.” The technology is helpful, she said, but proper guardrails need to be in place in addition to proper investments for teacher training. 

As districts issue AI guidance, it’s important that they differentiate between teacher and student use of technology, Doan said. While schools should be more considerate of student screentime, Doan said, it doesn’t mean teachers using AI will require students to do the same.

For example, he said, a teacher could use an AI instructional planning tool that could help them create paper-and-pencil-based lessons for students. 

A healthy school culture alongside well-integrated technology will ultimately help improve teacher burnout, Noble said. But what will also make a difference is if teachers can build meaningful relationships in their school buildings and have the time through professional development to explore and learn how AI tools can better support their students, she said.