Picture this: your living room senses your return, dims the lights, and cues up soft music before you have even uttered a word. In another part of the world, a hospital room’s Wi-Fi network quietly monitors patient movement, detecting subtle falls or unusual behaviors without wearables or invasive cameras. And across a telemedicine call, an AI assistant not only listens to your words but also to your tone, adjusting its responses with warmth, care, and emotional intelligence.
These are not concepts from speculative fiction. They are real applications of artificial intelligence happening today:
- Computer Vision in Smart Homes
Samsung is embedding computer vision in everyday appliances like TVs and refrigerators, enabling them to detect motion, sound, and environmental changes. Their “Home AI” platform promises to turn ordinary spaces into responsive ones. When you relax, lights dim, and when necessary, the system adjusts air quality, and the home hub securely manages the entire process.
- Wi-Fi Sensing in Healthcare and Security
Companies are now using Wi-Fi signals, the same signals that run your home router, to sense motion, track breathing, and detect falls. This technology is improving elder care and home automation, and it does not require wearables or intrusive cameras.
- Affective Computing in Telemedicine
Emotion AI is becoming increasingly sophisticated. Hume AI’s empathic voice interface, for example, adds emotional nuance to traditional voice assistants. In healthcare, this technology helps clinicians identify a patient’s emotional state during virtual care, which increases trust, empathy, and effectiveness.
AI has expanded beyond content and automation, as these innovations prove. It is changing the environment we live in. It hears, it adjusts, and it answers. Why aren’t we implementing this in our classrooms?
Let us redefine the intelligent classroom as more than just a technologically advanced space, but as a responsive one.
Consider a classroom that detects when students are disengaged and then subtly changes its lighting to help them concentrate. One that uses ambient sensors to detect elevated stress levels and lowers noise accordingly. Or a space where seating arrangements adapt to the flow of collaboration or moments of individual reflection.
These are not figments of the imagination. They build upon the AI infrastructure that is currently affecting consumer and healthcare technology. In educational contexts, these function as resources that aid instructors in real-time, working to augment their capabilities through unobtrusive, responsive systems that refine the learning environment, not by replacing them.
The change involves a transition from devices that teach to environments that learn.
Why does this matter?
As any experienced teacher knows, learning is not just cognitive. Learning is also emotional, physical, and sensory. Everything from light levels to sound to seating arrangements can affect executive function, memory retention, and focus. For all learners, these factors are not peripheral. They are foundational.
An intelligent classroom can help close the gap between what students need and what the environment offers. AI-driven adjustments, automated and ambient, can lessen overstimulation, aid self-regulation, and ensure the focus remains on discovery, dialogue, and connection.
Considering that AI can currently expect needs in the home, facilitate remote healthcare, and interpret emotional responses through a screen, it can certainly have a greater impact on education.
Jason McKenna is V.P. of Global Educational Strategy for VEX Robotics and author of “What STEM Can Do for Your Classroom: Improving Student Problem Solving, Collaboration, and Engagement, Grade K-6.” His work specializes in curriculum development, global educational strategy, and engaging with educators and policymakers worldwide. For more of his insights, subscribe to his newsletter.
