The school bell still rings. But for many, it might as well be tolling for a system already past its expiry date.
According to investors and technologists Salim Ismail, Peter Diamandis, and Dave Blundin, traditional education is not just under pressure—it may have already failed. “When you’re learning with an AI assistant, you learn two to four times faster,” said Ismail. “That alone makes the current model of formal schooling redundant.”
It wasn’t a rhetorical flourish. The trio, whose work spans AI investment, government advisory roles, and deep-tech entrepreneurship, made it clear: the 20th-century model of schooling—structured around fixed curriculums, term calendars, and generalist teachers—is increasingly out of step with an AI-native generation.
Diamandis, known for launching multiple companies at the edge of science and space, didn’t hedge his words. “The AI you can use today is already better than most college teaching assistants,” he said. “In some cases, it’s better than the lecturer. And yet schools are still trying to ban it.”
While China and Estonia are racing ahead, embedding AI and computer science training from the early years, most Western education systems have defaulted to a position of caution or outright restriction. “MIT and Northeastern are telling students to use AI everywhere,” said Blundin, founder of Link Ventures. “And if professors can’t keep up, well, they’ll have to figure it out.”
He contrasted this with more traditional institutions: “My son’s high school bans AI outright. He’s furious. Meanwhile, his peers are using it to build projects, learn code, and test ideas that go far beyond their syllabus.”
This isn’t just about students misusing chatbots to write essays. “The real opportunity,” said Ismail, “is to let middle and high schoolers do extraordinary things they couldn’t normally attempt—build an app, model a system, create something with real-world impact.”
All three argue that this is the beginning of a wide divergence. AI is not replacing education—it’s accelerating it. Those with access will move two to four times faster. Those without will be stuck in bureaucratic slow lanes. “We’re locking kids into a system that assumes they need twelve years to reach competency,” said Diamandis. “That assumption is breaking.”
Australia presents a mixed picture. In public schools, AI remains largely absent from classrooms, with most states still formulating broad guidelines. The focus is often on regulating student use rather than exploring AI as a teaching tool. Meanwhile, some private schools—particularly in Victoria and New South Wales—have begun integrating AI platforms into their curriculum, often through third-party partnerships. These early adopters offer students tailored learning support, coding workshops, and interactive AI tutors. But across both systems, the gap is widening. “If you’re a Year 9 student at a public school without access to these tools, you’re already at a disadvantage,” said one education adviser privately. “The tech is here. What’s missing is the policy.”
Ismail pointed to a growing coalition of over 250 CEOs urging schools to make AI and computer science core graduation requirements. “Yet the policy lag is staggering. Most students are still being taught a maths curriculum that hasn’t changed in two decades.”
The economic inefficiency is just as stark. If AI can compress learning timelines, why are families still investing in twelve years of schooling followed by four years of increasingly expensive tertiary education? “Education used to be the best investment you could make,” Blundin said. “Now the returns are falling while the cost keeps rising.”
Blundin, who oversees two dozen AI-first startups, sees how fast the transition is occurring. “All of these companies are AI-native. Most of them write their code using large language models. The students we hire aren’t just learning faster—they’re building faster.”
And this acceleration is occurring in parallel to a deceleration in institutional responsiveness. “There’s a mismatch between policy and possibility,” said Diamandis. “Education policy still imagines a linear, standardised learning path. AI makes that obsolete.”
Asked what replaces the old model, none of the three argued for a wholesale dismantling of schools. But they agreed that the future lies in flexible, AI-supported, project-based learning with credentials tied to competence, not calendar time.
“You can’t hold kids back for tradition’s sake,” Ismail said. “That’s not education. That’s inertia.”
He also dismissed fears that AI will erode fundamental skills. “This is the calculator argument all over again. We didn’t stop teaching maths because calculators existed. We taught students how to use them intelligently. That’s where we need to go.”
The bigger concern, they argue, is access. AI-enabled learning tools are proliferating, but not evenly. “Education may once have levelled the playing field,” said Diamandis. “Now, ironically, it may be the wedge. Students with access to AI will break ahead. Everyone else risks falling behind.”
The commentary came during a wide-ranging conversation among the three entrepreneurs, recorded on the Moonshots podcast, where they discuss AI, exponential technologies, and the future of global systems.
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