A classroom can be full of digital tools and still leave a teacher short on time. That matters because workload remains a persistent concern in education. RAND’s survey shows that educators experience disproportionately higher rates of work-related exhaustion compared to other working professionals. This severe fatigue stems from a complex workload that extends far beyond daily lessons to include curriculum planning, strict documentation, classroom management, parent communication, and highly individualized instruction for diverse learners.
Technology can help with parts of that burden, but its presence alone does not determine whether work becomes easier. The U.K. Department for Education’s 2025 Technology in Schools Survey found that 43% of teachers believed technology had reduced their workload over the previous three academic years, while 13% said it had increased it. The contrast suggests that design, implementation, and fit with existing work matter alongside the technology itself.
That question becomes more important when students require individualized support. U.S. Department of Education guidance defines an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, as a written plan for a child with a disability that includes academic and functional goals and the services or supports intended to help the student progress. Section 504 guidance also explains that schools may need to provide modifications, aids, or services so students with disabilities have meaningful access to education. These responsibilities keep professional judgment and individual needs at the center of teaching.
Research around newer multimodal systems points in a similar direction. A 2025 perspective published in npj Science of Learning noted that multimodal tools may support more personalized learning experiences, while also raising concerns involving accuracy, bias, accessibility, data protection, and the need for human oversight. The issue, then, is not simply whether technology can do more. It is whether educators can use it in ways that strengthen their ability to teach.
That distinction is central to Lisa Revelli, founder and CEO of Guardian Airwaves, who frames intelligence augmentation as the mission guiding the learning platform she is developing. Rather than treating automation as the goal, she views technology as a way to strengthen what teachers, students, and parents are already trying to do. “Intelligence augmentation has always been at the core of the company’s values,” she says. “AI is a tool that can support that purpose, but it is not the purpose itself.”
Guardian Airwaves’ triad platform, In The Zone, is designed to support parents, teachers, and students. Specifically, neurodivergent students and those with learning disabilities in order to provide at-home support for more focused learning through reengagement when inattentive, strengthening working memory, and providing emotional support. Parents and teachers are kept in the loop through their own dashboard to track their child’s progress and track the number of interventions that the platform logged.
For Revelli, one measure of usefulness is whether a tool gives teachers more capacity to focus on students. “The goal is to give teachers more time to do what they came into the profession to do, which is teach,” she says. “Technology should reduce some of the repetitive administrative work rather than create another layer of responsibility.” Her perspective reflects a broader concern that additional technology can become another demand if it does not fit naturally into classroom routines.
Guardian Airwaves is pre-revenue, and the capabilities Revelli discusses remain part of a platform in development rather than established educational outcomes. She describes an adaptive, personalized approach intended to support multimodal learning and individual needs, including those reflected in IEPs and Section 504 plans. She also sees potential for simplifying tasks such as incident reporting and other administrative processes while keeping educators responsible for decisions. “The platform should be simple enough that teachers are not fighting with it,” she says. “The technology should take stress away, not add to it.”
Responsibility also shapes how Revelli thinks about educational content. She describes an approach in which teachers provide learning material, and students can ask questions within a more controlled instructional environment. “Educational content should stay connected to what teachers are actually teaching,” she says. “Students can still explore and ask questions, but responsibility and oversight have to remain central.” The approach reflects her broader view that technology should remain connected to educator judgment rather than function independently of it.
That emphasis offers a useful standard for evaluating education technology more broadly. Personalized tools may become more capable, but capability is only part of the equation. What matters in practice is whether they fit classroom realities, preserve professional judgment, and give educators more room to respond to individual students. In Revelli’s view, the strongest measure of progress is not how much human involvement disappears. It is how much more effectively people are able to teach, learn, and support one another.