The Complete Guide to Using AI in the Education Industry in Italy in 2025

Italy's classroom scene in 2025 feels like a live lab: a government pilot launched in September 2024 has placed AI virtual assistants on tablets and computers in 15 classrooms across four regions, part of a wider push to close Italy's digital skills gap and modernise teaching (see Italy's AI-assisted teaching pilot and coverage of the school trials).

The change meets a ready audience - a GoStudent survey found 81% of Italian students already use AI, yet only 28% learn those skills at school and just 34% of teachers feel prepared - so schools are balancing excitement with the need for teacher training and ethical guardrails.

Conferences hosted in Palermo this year amplified this momentum, spotlighting research on personalised tutoring, fairness, and LLMs in assessment. For educators and ed‑tech professionals wanting practical, workplace-ready AI skills, options like the 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp map directly to classroom and school‑administration use cases.

“AI doesn't just indicate a mistake, it also tells the student which subject he needs to work on.”

In 2025 Italian classrooms and students use AI for everything from quick homework help to immersive lessons: 81% of students report using AI tools and 38% lean on voice assistants for study or daily management, while many pupils explicitly want VR/AR and robotic tutors even though only 18% have tried them (see Il Sole 24 Ore's survey).

The national pilot has put AI “virtual assistants” on tablets and classroom computers in 15 classrooms across four regions to personalise pacing, flag weak topics, and free teachers from routine tasks so they can focus on adaptive instruction - an approach detailed in Airtics' coverage of the AI‑assisted teaching trial.

Academic mapping by Bocconi also shows the need to understand who uses generative tools and for what purposes, because widespread use doesn't yet mean widespread literacy; that gap shapes how these tools are being applied in study, revision, assessment support and administrative workflows.

Picture a classroom where one room follows a textbook and the next gets tailored practice from an on‑screen tutor: that contrast is exactly what pilots are measuring to judge impact.

“In an increasingly digital world, possessing adequate digital skills is essential for meaningful participation in both work and society.”

Italy's education strategy for AI weaves national ambition with EU guardrails: the Italian Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (2024–2026) places training, research, public administration and enterprise at the centre of efforts and is backed by a €1 billion fund to scale locally relevant tools and skills, while implementation is explicitly being aligned with the EU's risk‑based rules in the EU AI Act regulatory framework that treat certain education uses as high‑risk and introduce transparency and human‑oversight obligations; at the same time the European Commission's European Commission ethical guidelines for educators on using AI and the AILit competency work support schools with practical, classroom‑level advice and an expected guidelines revision by end‑2025.

Institutional practice in Italy is already following a participatory, holistic route - exemplified by the University of Florence's institution‑wide guidelines that insist every syllabus “identify why a tool is used” and frame AI as an augmenting partner (agency, integrity, privacy, well‑being), so schools and edTech providers must marry pedagogy, compliance and teacher training to move pilots into sustainable practice; that blend of national funding, EU law and local, pedagogy‑first rules is the backbone of Italy's 2025 education AI strategy.

“You must ask every time whether it is worth using AI, because it has a cost.”

Student uptake of AI in Italy is high and uneven: 81% of students report using AI for study, yet only 28% learn those skills at school, so most young people are turning to parents or self‑study while teachers - just 34% feel prepared - struggle to keep pace (see the GoStudent findings in Il Sole 24 Ore report on student AI use in Italy); voice assistants are already a study aid for 38%, and more than half (57%) want VR/AR or robotic tutors even though just 18% have tried them.

Household data from the Bank of Italy household generative AI usage report shows about a quarter used generative AI in the prior year, with usage concentrated among young people and those in education or ICT jobs - a pattern that underlines a striking “practice gap”: students expect modern digital fluency (many want cybersecurity, machine learning and tech development), but formal schooling and teacher training lag, creating pockets of advantage for those who can self‑learn or access private tutoring.

“We are convinced that there can and must be an Italian way to artificial intelligence.”

Teacher readiness in Italy is the single biggest bottleneck between high student demand for AI and safe, effective classroom use: while 81% of students already tap AI tools, only 34% of teachers say they feel prepared and just 28% report learning those skills at school, a mismatch the GoStudent coverage in Il Sole 24 Ore highlights as especially acute in state schools where the gap is widening; two clear consequences are uneven classroom practice (some pupils guided by AI tutors, others left to self‑study) and rising pressure from students - 66% overall, 76% in state schools - who want teachers to know more about AI and immersive tools.

Research from Politecnico di Milano underlines that teacher groups differ sharply in their use of digital tools (a legacy of emergency remote teaching), which helps explain why training needs are so varied across regions and school types.

Closing this readiness gap means targeted professional development, pedagogy‑first guidelines and hands‑on support - practical steps explored in resources like Nucamp AI Essentials for Work educator prompts - so schools can turn a classroom full of apps into coordinated learning rather than a traffic jam of unconnected tools; see the original GoStudent findings in Il Sole 24 Ore and the Politecnico di Milano study for the underlying data and subgroup analysis.

Professional development and institutional support in Italy is increasingly practical and networked rather than theoretical: the European Training Foundation's

Teaching with Artificial Intelligence

New Learning Club - kick‑off 3 June 2024 and hosted on ETF's Open Space in Turin - pulled in some 350 interested educators and produced a crowdsourced, six‑month

Unlocking AI in education: A Teacher's Guide to AI Literacy

to help teachers move from curiosity to classroom routines; the Club also ran a series of public webinars (including a March event on unlocking AI pedagogy) and continued with topical catch‑ups through 2025 so schools can tap peer‑tested practices and earn Pioneer Open Badges.

Institutional links make that support actionable: a recorded briefing from Fabio Nascimbeni and the ETF's work is available via the AI Pioneers Network webinar recording, while practical short courses - like the 3‑hour live online AI workshops aligned to professional standards - give busy teachers hands‑on prompt practice and lesson‑level strategies.

For Italian school leaders and ed‑tech teams, these coordinated clubs, webinars and bite‑size workshops form a low‑friction ladder from pilot tools to policy‑aligned, classroom‑ready use (imagine a staff meeting where every teacher leaves with one scaffolded prompt and a plan to use it the next week).

Italy's calendar for 2024–2025 is punctuated by practical, UN‑backed learning opportunities that are directly relevant to schools, ed‑tech teams and policymakers: the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) ran an online Winter School on Environmental Crimes (18–22 November 2024) and is advertising a Winter School on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Human Rights with a rolling application cycle into late 2025, while its Training and Advanced Education programmes (based in Turin with a liaison office in Rome) continue to offer short, intensive courses and webinars that mix live sessions with hands‑on exercises.

These programmes are deliberately scheduled for European timezones - live webinars often run 14:00–18:00 Rome time - so classroom professionals can join after school and work directly with international experts; booking deadlines are strict (for example the 2024 environmental course closed applications on 3 November 2024), so planning ahead is essential.

For anyone building responsible AI practice in Italian schools, UNICRI's winter schools and training pages are useful starting points: see the UNICRI Winter School on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Human Rights and the UNICRI Training and Advanced Education overview for course details and contacts.

Practical classroom use cases in Italy are already concrete and classroom‑ready: pilots place AI “virtual assistants” on tablets and classroom PCs to serve as on‑screen tutors that personalise pacing, flag weak topics and free teachers from routine tasks so they can focus on tailored instruction (see the USNews coverage of Italy AI-assisted teaching pilot in schools).

In participating schools - including the large IIS Tommaso Salvini in Rome - teachers will apply the tools across subjects from science to Italian, Latin and English, and students can use the platform both in class and for homework, with the pilot measuring learning gains and drop‑out risk reduction over a two‑year trial (Euronews report on Italy piloting AI in schools to boost tech-based learning).

These assistants rely on conversational interfaces and real‑time feedback to surface where a pupil needs more practice, while national surveys show broad uptake by learners - 81% already use AI tools and 38% rely on voice assistants for study - so classroom implementations aim to convert informal use into structured, pedagogy‑led practice (Il Sole 24 Ore survey: 81% of students use AI and 38% use voice assistants for study).

For Italian IT teams and school leaders, immediate priorities are integration with LMS/homework workflows, clear teacher prompts and monitoring dashboards that turn raw interactions into actionable teaching signals.

“AI doesn't just indicate a mistake, it also tells the student which subject he needs to work on.”

Moving to Italy in 2025 for educators or ed‑tech professionals is realistic but requires planning around the Decreto Flussi quota system and a few practical entry routes: sponsor‑based work visas (standard work permit) are quota‑controlled and need an employer to request a nulla osta on a “click day,” while high‑skill hires can use the non‑quota EU Blue Card (with a ~€33,500 gross salary threshold) and intra‑company transfers (ICT) let companies relocate staff without eating into quotas; see a clear employer guide to the quota rules at Centuro's overview of Italy's immigration policy.

Expect administrative lead time - work permits commonly take about 2–3 months and consular visa steps another few weeks - so line up documents early (contract, criminal record, health insurance, and a registered lease or housing suitability certificate) and be ready to file for your permesso di soggiorno within eight days of arrival as required by Italian authorities.

Freelancers and remote‑first ed‑tech specialists should review the Digital Nomad / Remote Worker visa rules carefully (income and lease proofs are firm requirements and the visa lists qualifying professions), while teachers without immediate employer sponsorship often use student visas to enter and teach part‑time (usually up to ~20 hours/week) while converting status later; the EU migration portal and the consular digital nomad page are practical starting points for checklists and deadlines.

Practically: treat the lease, the signed stay contract and the nulla osta like currency - arriving with them stamped and in order can turn a stressful arrival into a smooth first week in the classroom or the office.

The picture for AI in Italy's education and IT scene is cautiously optimistic: pilots that put AI “virtual assistants” into 15 classrooms across four regions are turning abstract promises into measurable practice, while market forecasts - from Airtics' projection of the global AI‑in‑education market rising sharply through 2030 to IMARC's forecast for a booming Italy online‑education sector - signal strong demand for scalable, secure platforms and data workflows (see Airtics' market note and the Italy 2025 Digital Decade country report).

Yet the upside depends on hard systems work: Italy's digital roadmap highlights progress in connectivity and strategic tech but also warns that only ~8.2% of enterprises have adopted AI and that basic digital skills remain low, so schools and regional IT teams must pair pedagogy with reliable cloud, analytics and cybersecurity practices.

That's why practical, short‑intensive options matter for educators and ed‑tech pros - programmes that teach prompt design, prompt‑to‑workflow integrations and classroom‑safe retrieval systems can move pilots from novelty to routine; one accessible path is Nucamp's 15‑week Nucamp AI Essentials for Work 15‑Week Bootcamp, which focuses on real workplace prompts and tools.

Expect the next two years to be decisive: if policymakers, universities and school IT services build interoperability, teacher upskilling and clear oversight in parallel, Italy can translate pilot gains into region‑wide, IT‑backed improvements in learning outcomes and operational efficiency.

“AI doesn't just indicate a mistake, it also tells the student which subject he needs to work on.”