This month marks two years since ChatGPT launched and fundamentally disrupted education. Two years. In technology terms, that is an eternity. In education terms, it is barely enough time to form a committee, draft a policy, pilot a program, and evaluate results. That mismatch between the speed of technological change and the pace of institutional response is the defining challenge of this moment.
So where do schools actually stand, two years in? The answer, based on what I have seen traveling to conferences, training hundreds of teachers, and building iTeachAI Academy this year, is complicated.
The Good News
The panic has largely subsided. Two years ago, educators were genuinely afraid. Afraid that students would cheat on everything. Afraid that writing instruction was dead. Afraid that their jobs were next. Some of those fears were reasonable. Most were overblown.
What has replaced the panic is something far more productive: pragmatism. The majority of educators I work with now accept that AI is part of the landscape. They may not love it. They may not fully understand it. But they are no longer pretending it will go away.
Organizations like ISTE and CoSN have released frameworks and guidance. UNESCO has published global recommendations. The conversation has matured from "What do we do about ChatGPT?" to "How do we prepare students for an AI-shaped world?" That is real progress.
Additionally, the tools themselves have improved. AI is now embedded in platforms teachers already use - Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Canva, Adobe Express. This normalization has actually made AI less scary. When it is just a feature in a familiar tool rather than a mysterious external chatbot, teachers are more willing to experiment.
The Bad News
Professional development has not kept pace. Not even close. Despite two years of urgency, most teachers have received minimal training on AI. The data from RAND, CoSN, and other organizations consistently shows a massive gap between what teachers need and what they are getting.
I have trained educators in districts where teachers received exactly one email about AI policy and nothing else. I have worked with schools where the "AI training" consisted of a 45-minute after-school session that was really just a product demo. I have met brilliant veteran teachers who feel demoralized because they know they should be doing something different but have no idea what.
This is not a teacher problem. This is a leadership problem. Districts that have invested in sustained, practical AI professional development - and I have had the privilege of working with several - are in a fundamentally different place than those that have not.
The equity gaps I warned about at the start of this year are materializing. Schools with resources are integrating AI thoughtfully. Schools without resources are still in reactive mode. Students in some classrooms are learning to use AI as a thinking tool. Students in other classrooms have never been taught anything about AI at all. Two years in, and the divide is widening.
What Has Surprised Me
A few things have surprised me over these two years.
First, I underestimated how quickly students would move beyond ChatGPT. The students I interact with are not just using one tool. They are using Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, specialized coding assistants, image generators, and AI features built into apps I have never heard of. The adult conversation about "ChatGPT in schools" is already dated. Students live in a multi-AI ecosystem.
Second, I overestimated how quickly policy would follow practice. I expected that by late 2024, most districts would have clear, comprehensive AI policies. Many still do not. Those that do often have policies that are vague, outdated, or focused entirely on prohibition rather than guidance. Policy remains one of the weakest links.
Third, I have been pleasantly surprised by the creativity of teachers who do engage with AI. I have seen an elementary music teacher use AI to generate lyric variations for songwriting lessons. I have seen a high school physics teacher use AI to create personalized problem sets. I have seen a special education teacher use AI to rapidly adapt materials for different reading levels. When teachers have the support and permission to experiment, remarkable things happen.
The iTeachAI Academy Journey
This year has been transformative for me personally. I launched iTeachAI Academy because I saw the gap between what teachers needed and what existed. The platform has grown beyond what I initially imagined, and the feedback from educators has been both humbling and energizing.
What I have learned from building the Academy is that teachers want depth, not breadth. They do not want a surface-level tour of 20 AI tools. They want to deeply understand a few approaches that they can implement immediately. They want to hear from someone who has been in the classroom, not just someone who studies classrooms from the outside. And they want a community - other educators who are wrestling with the same questions.
Looking Ahead to Year Three
As we approach 2025, here is what I believe schools need to prioritize:
Invest in teacher capacity. The single highest-leverage action any district can take is providing quality, sustained AI professional development for every teacher. Not optional. Not one-time. Ongoing, embedded, and practical.
Move from policy to practice. Policies are necessary but insufficient. Teachers need concrete examples of what AI integration looks like in their grade level and subject area. Abstract principles do not change classroom practice.
Treat AI literacy as foundational. AI literacy belongs alongside digital citizenship, media literacy, and information literacy as a core competency for every student. This requires dedicated instructional time, not just incidental exposure.
Address the equity imperative. Every student deserves access to AI education. This means funding, training, devices, and - most importantly - adults in schools who can guide students through the complexities of AI with wisdom and care.
ChatGPT's second birthday is not a celebration. It is a checkpoint. Two years in, education has made progress, but not enough. The next year will determine whether we catch up or fall further behind.
I know which outcome I am working toward. I hope you will join me.
Janette Camacho, Ed.D., is the Founder and Chief Learning Architect at iTeachAI Academy (classes.iteachai.co). She is a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, FETC 2024 and 2025 Featured Presenter, Adobe Creative Educator, and Apple Teacher with 28+ years of K-12 classroom experience.