Top 5 Jobs in Education That Are Most at Risk from AI in Knoxville - And How to Adapt

AI is already reshaping classrooms across Tennessee and in Knoxville: SCORE's statewide review and district pilots document new K–12 and higher‑education AI policies and local pilots in Hamilton and Sumner counties that speed personalized learning and shave routine tasks from teachers' days, and a recent state survey found 40% of Tennessee teachers report using AI on the job - clear signals that instructional, assessment, and administrative roles will evolve fast.

Anchors like the University of Tennessee's AI Tennessee Initiative at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are growing regional AI research and workforce pathways, while SCORE's guidance offers practical pilot lessons and policy guardrails.

For Knoxville educators and staff, targeted reskilling - training on prompt use, assessment design, and safe AI practices - turns exposure into opportunity: protect learning goals while shifting at‑risk tasks into higher‑value, human-centered work; see SCORE and UT for pilot examples and local resources.

“Through research, workforce development, and industry partnerships, we empower students, professionals, and industries to drive innovation and shape a future of opportunity for Tennessee and the nation.” - Vasileios Maroulas, AI Tennessee Initiative

Methodology combined Tennessee‑specific survey evidence with national occupational analysis and local pilot observations: SCORE's spring 2025 district survey (86 district leaders) and the statewide TDOE/TERA educator survey (39,738 teachers; 2,156 school leaders) provided prevalence and use‑case data - 85% of districts reported educators using AI and 84% said it reduces administrative time - while local pilots in Hamilton, Collierville, and Sevier Counties supplied concrete task examples (Khanmigo tutoring, admin drafting, translation).

These findings were cross‑checked against broader task‑level risk metrics from the Microsoft Research occupational AI applicability study, which highlights strong applicability for knowledge work and office/administrative tasks.

Jobs were scored by task overlap with common AI activities (information gathering, writing, advising), frequency of local use, and district concerns about cheating, privacy, and training - producing a prioritized list that reflects both Knoxville realities and measured AI task impact; so what: with 85% adoption signals and high applicability for office tasks, routine customer‑service and editing roles in schools show the clearest near‑term exposure.

“People who use AI are going to replace those who don't, but we're using it to enhance - not replace - our educators.” - Stacia Lewis, Sevier County Schools Assistant Superintendent

Instructional designers and curriculum writers in Knoxville are among the most exposed education roles because their core tasks - drafting syllabi, sequencing lessons, generating assessments, and producing multimedia - map directly to generative AI strengths: tools can spin up a 30‑minute training video in as few as 10 minutes and auto‑align activities to objectives, shrinking routine production time while raising the bar for human oversight.

That speed creates a clear “so what”: districts that adopt AI without reskilling risk sidelining teams that don't master prompt strategy, bias checks, and data‑privacy controls.

Practical risks highlighted in the literature include algorithmic bias, transparency and student‑privacy concerns, and integrity gaps when AI replaces formative work; at the same time, designers who combine AI‑driven prototyping with ethical review and domain verification retain control and add value.

Local pilots and national reviews also show AI's effect is incremental but accelerating - so Knoxville teams should pair rapid‑use proficiency with the ethical guardrails described in the AI instructional‑design guidance and workforce analyses below to convert automation into higher‑value design roles (Ethical guidance for AI-driven instructional design (EdTech Books), How AI is changing instructional designers' work (The Learning Guild)) and tap local supports such as UTK Knoxville AI initiatives and vodcast.

“Relying more and more on AI may reduce the teacher-to-student interactions and relationships and take away from the social-emotional aspects of ...” - AI in Schools: Pros and Cons

Proofreaders and copy editors in Knoxville are at high risk because AI already handles bulk surface tasks - grammar, punctuation, and formatting - faster and with growing accuracy, and one review estimates AI can cut manual proofreading time by as much as 50% on routine checks (Study: AI's impact on manuscript editing and proofreading - Stirling Publishing); several experienced editors foresee a shift away from “error checking” toward judgement‑heavy work, and even predict a near‑term squeeze on PDF proofing roles (CIEP editors' perspectives on AI for editors).

At the same time, AI hallucinations, invented citations, and data‑privacy risks mean sensitive legal, medical, and transcript proofreading - work that routinely requires NDAs and subject knowledge - remains squarely human territory, and firms and districts must be wary about routing confidential drafts into third‑party tools (Analysis: are proofreaders still needed with AI - Proofread Anywhere).

So what: proofreaders who pivot to verifiable, niche expertise (legal/medical/transcript formats), add AI‑oversight skills (spotting hallucinations, prompt review, and privacy‑safe workflows), and document those safeguards will preserve value as routine tasks automate; editors who don't upskill risk losing commodity line‑edit work to cheaper, faster AI.

“Most of all I believe that, when it comes to the quintessentially human activity of communication, ultimately humans will always prefer to work with other humans.” - Hazel Bird

Postsecondary business and economics professors in Knoxville face elevated exposure because their core work - crafting case-based exams, grading written analysis, and providing detailed feedback - maps directly onto today's strongest generative‑AI capabilities: language modeling, rapid draft generation, and automated scoring; a major occupational study found postsecondary teachers dominate the most‑exposed roles (14 of the top 20), and follow‑ups show faculty are among the highest‑exposed groups nationally (Study on college professors' AI exposure - UniversityBusiness).

Locally, that matters: without clear faculty control over pace and purpose of AI use, routine evaluative tasks can be outsourced to tools, shrinking time for research and mentoring - an AAUP survey documents 90% institutional AI integration but only 20% of colleges with published AI policies and finds administrators overwhelmingly leading AI rollout, a governance gap that directly threatens academic judgment and job quality (AAUP survey on institutional AI integration - Inside Higher Ed).

So what: Knoxville faculty who push for faculty‑led policies, redesign assessments to value process over produced text, and build prompt‑engineering and ethics into syllabi (leveraging UT and regional pilot supports) will protect learning outcomes and make their roles indispensable as AI handles routine scoring and drafting.

“Many colleges and universities currently have no meaningful shared governance mechanisms around technology.” - AAUP report

Library and information‑science faculty in Knoxville face elevated risk because AI is already changing core mediation tasks - search, summarization, cataloging, and basic reference - and vendors are building these features into discovery platforms.

EBSCO's AI Insights beta, for example, generates 3–5 key‑point summaries that 85% of end users said would substantially improve workflow and that 96% of “efficiency seekers” found very helpful, a workflow shortcut that novice researchers sometimes apply without source verification; without structured verification and curriculum changes, faculty risk becoming validators of machine output rather than teachers of research judgment.

At the same time, reporting from Cronkite and library practitioners shows AI boosts semantic search, automates metadata work, and powers chatbots for routine questions - freeing staff for higher‑value outreach but also compressing tasks that undergird many LIS faculty roles.

The practical “so what” for Knoxville: programs that build AI literacy, prompt‑engineering instruction, and privacy‑safe evaluation practices (so students and staff verify AI summaries and protect circulation data) will let faculty shift from gatekeepers to designers of trustworthy information workflows and retain institutional authority.

“I see an application for various early stages of the research process such as determining keywords, subtopics, narrowing and broadening topics, creating outlines, etc.” - Librarian Beta Tester (EBSCO)

Administrative customer‑service roles in Knoxville schools - front‑office clerks, registrars, attendance staff, and district administrative assistants - face moderate risk because the most common AI gains map to their daily tasks: drafting emails and communications, summarizing meeting notes, generating templates, and scheduling support.

Tennessee leaders report rapid adoption - 85% of districts said educators are using AI and 84% of district respondents view reduced administrative time as the biggest benefit (SCORE survey on district AI use in Tennessee) - while statewide educator data show administrators already leaning on AI for communications and routine drafting (TDOE/TERA Tennessee educator AI findings).

Education Week documents everyday examples - teachers and staff using AI to draft emails, create resources, and summarize notes - that foreshadow a shift from transaction processing to oversight, privacy management, and tool‑governance work (Education Week: teachers using AI to save time).

So what: routine triage tasks are most likely to be automated, while positions that add documented privacy safeguards, policy compliance, and human judgment around sensitive student interactions will retain value - local reskilling should prioritize prompt management, data‑privacy workflows, and clear AI policy literacy.

“People who use AI are going to replace those who don't, but we're using it to enhance, not replace, our educators.” - Stacia Lewis, Sevier County Schools Assistant Superintendent

Knoxville educators can move from vulnerability to advantage by treating AI as a tool to amplify teaching, not a substitute for it: statewide guidance urges districts to prioritize AI literacy, professional development, and pilot learning so teachers can redesign assessments, manage privacy‑safe workflows, and reclaim time for mentoring and high‑value instruction (SCORE Tennessee AI in Education recommendations).

Local evidence and UT resources show practical next steps - build prompt‑writing and verification routines, require documentation of AI use, and integrate ethics and source‑checking into curricula - because nearly half of Tennessee teachers already report using AI, making reskilling urgent rather than optional (UT Office of Innovative Technologies teaching with AI guidance).

For educators ready to upskill quickly, targeted programs such as Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work teach prompt technique, practical classroom use cases, and policy literacy in a 15‑week format and can accelerate district PD partnerships (Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp registration).

The so‑what: districts that pair clear policies with verified teacher training will preserve instructional authority and turn automation into time for deeper, human‑centered learning.

“AI is not a replacement for the human creativity, insight, or connection that only you can provide.”