Best AI Tools for Teachers in 2025

Although bubbling beneath the surface for years, consumer-facing Artificial Intelligence burst onto the scene on the 30th November 2022 with the launch of ChatGPT, a generative AI. Since then, the pace of innovation has been breakneck.

In the world of teaching, the Department for Education (DfE) has tentatively embraced AI, and recently issued guidance that “green-lighted" the use of AI to help with “low-stakes” tasks, such as drafting letters to parents, writing policy documents, and creating lesson plans.

The use of AI in schools has definitely been a quiet bottom-up revolution, with younger teachers adopting the technology enthusiastically. Now, it’s a mainstay for most educators. 

Want to accelerate your career? If your school doesn’t have an AI Champion, could that be you? (Ofsted research (opens in a new tab) found that schools successfully integrating AI often have an "AI champion".) When the internet was in its infancy, it was the early adopters who became the leaders of tomorrow.

Buyer beware: Attempting to provide a “definitive” list of the best AI tools for teachers is futile – the pace of change is too fast for that. Instead, we’ve trawled through what’s out there and selected some of the best AI tools for teachers that we believe will save you time and improve student outcomes. 

Key Takeaways

• AI is a Mainstay in UK Education: The Department for Education has approved AI for "low-stakes" tasks, and many teachers are already using it to reduce their workload and improve efficiency.

• Choose the Right Tool for the Job: The best AI tools are easy to use, functional, affordable and safe. You can find specific tools for tasks like lesson planning, marking, resource creation and administration.

• Empowerment, Not Replacement: AI acts as an assistant that handles administrative tasks, freeing you to focus on student engagement and one-on-one support. It's meant to enhance your skills, not replace them.

• Start Simple and Stay Safe: Begin with a free, versatile tool like ChatGPT or MagicSchool.ai (opens in a new tab). Always prioritize student safety by checking for accuracy and bias and following data privacy rules.

What Makes a Great AI Tool for Teachers?

Here are some criteria to help you decide which tools to use:

Ease of Use

The best AI tools are intuitive and their value is immediately apparent. Additionally, it should work seamlessly with your existing systems. Many AI tools, for example, allow sign in with Google or Microsoft accounts.

Functionality

Does the tool solve a real problem for you? If, for example, you’re spending long evenings writing student reports, could that be streamlined? The same goes for marking, planning and other tasks that take you away from your core mission: teaching.

Affordability

We know that school budgets are tight. We will highlight a mix of free tools and paid options. Many tools offer a generous free tier or trial period, allowing you to test their value before committing. 

Privacy and Safety

This is non-negotiable. Every tool has to ensure confidential student information is protected and that the content generated is appropriate for the classroom.

A brief note on free versus paid

Free tools are excellent for getting started, but paid subscriptions often unlock more powerful features.

Best AI Tools by Teaching Task

AI Tools for Lesson Planning

Lesson planning can be the most time-consuming part of a teacher’s week, especially if you’re new to the profession. These tools are designed to fast track your lesson planning. 

Top tip: great prompts will give rise to great resources – and AI can even help you write those prompts.

MagicSchool.ai

This is arguably the most comprehensive AI tool suite for teachers. It offers a massive library of generators, from creating lesson plans from a single prompt to generating multiple-choice questions. Its "Lesson Plan Generator" is particularly impressive, allowing you to specify the key stage, subject and learning objective. It will produce a structured, scaffolded plan.

• Pros: Incredible range of tools, tailored specifically for teachers. It has been built from the ground up with teachers in mind. In addition, their free tier is generous.

• Cons: Content sometimes requires UK-specific editing, as this is very much an American company.

ChatGPT

The most popular AI chatbot is a versatile powerhouse. While not built specifically for education, its power lies in its flexibility. You can use it to brainstorm ideas for a lesson, write a complete plan, or generate creative writing prompts. 

The key is to be specific with your prompts. For example: "Generate a 60-minute lesson plan for a Year 9 History class on the causes of World War I, including a starter, main activities, and a plenary." 

Top tip: Save your prompts along with your lesson plan. Refine and improve your prompts as you become more experienced.

• Pros: Extremely powerful and free to use (with some limitations on the free tier). Highly adaptable.

• Cons: Requires well-crafted prompts to get a useful output.

Curipod

Curipod is a unique tool that integrates AI directly into a presentation platform. It allows you to create interactive lessons with AI-generated content and questions in seconds. Students can join the lesson on their devices, making it a great tool for a blended learning environment.

• Pros: Combines lesson planning with interactive classroom delivery.

• Cons: Best for specific, interactive lesson segments rather than entire lesson plans.

AI Tools for Marking and Feedback

Marking is a huge part of the teaching workload. I’ve seen teachers marking on planes, on trains, in coffee shops and even during haircuts! And, as soon as one set of work has been dispatched, the next is never far away. But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Save My Exams Smart Mark

This is a premium tool built to integrate seamlessly with the Save My Exams platform. Smart Mark uses AI to mark student work and provide detailed, actionable feedback aligned with the official mark schemes of major exam boards. It gives you a breakdown of student strengths and weaknesses, helping you to target your teaching more effectively.

• Pros: Aligned with exam board mark schemes, and provides detailed student analytics. It’s useful for students too.

• Cons: Premium tool that requires a membership. 

ScribeSense

This is a game-changer for marking handwritten work. You upload a student's scanned work, and the AI converts it to text, marks it against a mark scheme, and generates feedback. If you teach an essay-based subject, this is a game changer.

• Pros: Drastically reduces marking time for handwritten work. Provides consistent feedback.

• Cons: Can sometimes struggle with very poor handwriting. If this is the case, perhaps the student’s access arrangements should specify “laptop”? Remember the exam boards will not award marks for illegible work.

Gradescope

A powerful tool for marking assignments, particularly for STEM subjects. You upload student work, and it uses AI to group similar answers together, allowing you to mark all of them at once. It’s highly efficient for grading long-answer questions and code.

• Pros: Saves a huge amount of time on marking similar responses. Provides a clear overview of student performance.

• Cons: Not suitable for everyday, low-stakes formative assessment.

AI Tools for Resource Creation

These tools are designed to help you create engaging, high-quality resources in a fraction of the time.

Canva AI:

Its "Magic Design" and "Magic Write" features can instantly generate presentations, posters, and handouts from a simple text prompt. You can then customize the content with Canva's extensive library of templates and images. 

Note: Canva has not been designed specifically for teachers and is not as intuitive as other teacher-first platforms.

Quizizz AI

This is a fantastic tool for creating interactive quizzes in seconds. Just provide a topic, and the AI will generate a quiz with various question types (multiple choice, open-ended, etc.).

Diffit

A brilliant tool for differentiation. Paste in a block of text, and Diffit will, for example, simplify it to different reading levels, generate vocabulary lists, create multiple-choice questions and provide a summary.

AI Tools for Classroom Engagement

These tools have been designed to make your lessons more interactive and encourage active student participation.

Eduaide

A platform designed to support teachers in creating engaging lesson materials. It can generate retrieval practice questions, discussion prompts, and small group activities to promote active learning and collaboration in the classroom.

Kahoot with AI

The popular quiz tool has integrated AI to help teachers create quizzes even faster. You simply provide a topic and the AI generates a Kahoot game, complete with questions and answers, that you can use immediately in your lesson.

Curipod

As mentioned in the planning section, Curipod’s true power is in its live, interactive delivery. It turns a static presentation into an active learning experience by prompting students to respond with polls, drawings, and open-ended answers, which the AI can then summarise and display. This enables real-time formative assessment of students’ understanding.

AI Tools for Admin and Communication

It’s often said that, when the students leave at the end of the day, that’s when a teacher’s day begins – often with a cascade of unread emails from parents, students and colleagues. Banish that sinking feeling by using these AI Tools.

GrammarlyGO

Grammarly’s AI-powered writing assistant can help you write emails, reports, and parent communications faster and more professionally. It can rephrase sentences, adjust tone, and even draft entire paragraphs based on a simple instruction.

AI Email Writers (e.g. Microsoft Outlook or Google Workspace)

Both major platforms are embedding AI into their email. You can ask the AI to, for example, draft an email to a parent about a student's progress or to your head of department about a new resource. They can also summarise an email chain, highlighting the salient points.

Top Free vs. Paid AI Tools For Teachers

Frequently Asked Questions

Are AI tools safe to use with students?

Safety is paramount. The AI tools featured in this article are mainly designed with teacher-led use in mind. This means the teacher is the one interacting with the AI, creating the content, and then presenting it to the students. It’s vital that you always thoroughly check resources before you share them with your class. 

Also, in an educational setting, you need to be wary of some criticisms of AI. For example, inaccuracy and "hallucinations" (generative AI models can produce false or fabricated information that is presented as fact) and bias and discrimination (the models are trained on vast datasets that contain human biases, which can lead to, for example, discriminatory or stereotypical outputs).

Can AI tools help with lesson differentiation?

Yes, this is one of AI's greatest strengths. Tools like Diffit are built specifically for this purpose, allowing you to quickly adjust the complexity of texts, generate scaffolded questions, and create support materials for students with different needs.

Which AI tools integrate with Google Classroom or Teams?

Many modern tools are built with integration in mind. Kahoot, Quizizz and Curipod all have features to share content directly with Google Classroom or Teams. Others, like MagicSchool.ai (opens in a new tab), can generate content that is easily copied and pasted into your learning platform. Some will, however, integrate better than others. For example, if you’re a Google School, you may find Gemini integrates more seamlessly than ChatGPT.

What are the best free AI tools for teachers?

ChatGPT and Gemini are fantastic free tools for their versatility. MagicSchool.ai (opens in a new tab) offers a very useful free tier that lets you test its broad range of features.

Other notable mentions include:

• Perplexity: Unlike a search engine, Perplexity synthesizes information from multiple sources and provides answers alongside all the source links.

• AskYourPDF: This enables you to upload and ask questions of a specific PDF - ideal for reading lengthy Ofsted, DfE and exam board PDFs.

• Conker: For quiz questions, especially maths-based questions. Quizzes on Conker AI include a "read-aloud" option, which is great for differentiation.

Final Thoughts

Trying to stop AI is like trying to stop the tide. It’s here to stay and will become increasingly important in an educational setting. If you’re not using AI already, start small – try one of the recommendations in this article. And put a post-it note on your computer that says: “Don’t forget to use AI” – you’ll be amazed how many tasks you can automate. 

References

• Ofsted - The biggest risk is doing nothing’: insights from early adopters of artificial intelligence in schools and further education colleges: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-in-schools-and-further-education-findings-from-early-adopters/the-biggest-risk-is-doing-nothing-insights-from-early-adopters-of-artificial-intelligence-in-schools-and-further-education-colleges (opens in a new tab)