How AI Is Helping Education Companies in Netherlands Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency

For education companies in the Netherlands, AI is becoming a practical lever to cut costs and personalise learning - if it's done with the right data maturity and safeguards.

Projects like the AI4VET4AI “Learning Analytics and AI, the Dutch journey” show how learners leave behind digital traces that, when responsibly analysed, can guide smarter interventions and free up teacher time, while national efforts such as the NOLAI lab and the Npuls AI & student-data hub are building co-created prototypes and research-informed practice.

At the same time the Dutch Data Protection Authority flags real risks - from biased adaptive systems to privacy and teacher upskilling - so governance matters as much as the tech.

Closing that skills gap is practical: workplaces can train staff with focused programs like Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work to learn prompt-writing and apply AI across business functions.

The bottom line for Dutch education providers is clear: combine Learning Analytics, strong policy, and targeted upskilling to realise savings without sacrificing student trust.

“AI offers many opportunities and risks for both education and research.” - Dr Jan Lintsen, University of Amsterdam

Building on national pilots and skills programmes, AI adoption in the Netherlands is clearly accelerating but uneven: the CBS's Dutch AI Monitor 2024 found 22.7% of firms (10+ employees) were using one or more AI technologies last year and most adopters obtained tools as off‑the‑shelf software, while the Netherlands hosts roughly 402 AI‑producing companies - many small, clustered in Noord‑Holland and Zuid‑Holland - which points to a vibrant SME-led ecosystem.

At the same time regulators and standards are catching up: the EU AI Act is in force and Dutch guidance from the DPA, sector regulators and standard bodies emphasise transparency, DPIAs and human‑centric governance (see an expert legal overview of the Netherlands' AI framework).

Workforce sentiment matters here too - EY's European AI Barometer shows most Dutch employees already feel AI's effects (61%) and nearly half worry about job change, while only about one quarter are satisfied with employer training; yet Dutch firms report meaningful cost impact, with many organisations saving over €1M from AI projects.

The net picture for education providers is pragmatic: strong national policy and supervisory attention create guardrails, while clear evidence of savings and a deepening local AI ecosystem create scalable, lower‑risk paths for pilots and workforce reskilling that preserve trust and compliance.

“The fact that the majority of management sees positive cost effects from the use of AI is a strong signal. AI has led to cost savings or increased revenue within companies in the Netherlands. AI pays off.” - Menno Bonninga, partner at EY in the Netherlands and AI Lead

Dutch classrooms are already cashing in on concrete EdTech use cases that shave operating costs while boosting outcomes: AI‑based adaptive platforms - now tracked in market reports for the Netherlands - let schools personalise pathways so pupils work at the right level and teachers focus on higher‑value coaching (Lucintel report: Adaptive learning market in the Netherlands).

Evidence from Snappet's adaptive practice shows pupils used the software about 20% more during lockdowns and made faster weekly progress, with the biggest gains among students who were behind - proof that targeted adaptive practice can act like scaled tutoring in the classroom (Snappet study: adaptive practice software gains during lockdown - Research Institute Learn).

Complementary tools - automated grading, learning analytics and chatbots - cut teacher admin time and speed interventions, while smarter networks and edge deployments reduce latency and operational headaches for bandwidth‑hungry platforms, lowering total cost of ownership if planned well (Ciena analysis: adaptive networks for education and EdTech infrastructure).

The takeaway for Dutch providers is vivid: a classroom that once needed extra tutoring hours can, with adaptive practice and the right infrastructure, become a personalised, cost‑efficient learning engine.

Administrative automation is where many Dutch education providers are finding immediate, measurable wins: Utrecht's PCOU Willibrord moved dozens of schools onto a centralised Student Information System and used Microsoft School Data Sync to automate class creation and year‑end transitions, enabling 8,359 Teams class groups tied to 9,369 students and 678 teachers and turning a once‑annual manual scramble into a click‑driven process (PCOU Willibrord centralised Student Information System with Microsoft School Data Sync).

At the same time, Dutch institutions such as ROC Midden‑Nederland are rolling out Kofax RPA with local partner Coforce as “Digital Teaching Assistants” to automate onboarding, absence registration, scheduling and invoice processing, proving RPA can scale across admin functions (ROC Midden‑Nederland Kofax RPA Digital Teaching Assistants implementation).

Complementing RPA, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) tools automate admissions forms, transcripts and AP workflows so records are searchable and staff time is redirected to students rather than data entry (ABBYY intelligent document processing for education admissions and transcripts).

The combined result: fewer back‑office bottlenecks, faster responses for parents and a predictable IT rhythm that keeps teachers focused on teaching - not paperwork.

“It's all about teaching and giving time to the educators, so they can give time to the students. If we can make IT simple, that's my purpose, my thing.” - Peter Schep, ICT Manager at PCOU Willibrord Foundation

Dutch evidence is starting to stack up: EY's European AI Barometer reports that a majority of organisations see real financial upside from AI - 56% report cost savings or higher profits and the average benefit lands at about €6.24 million - while the Netherlands specifically shows strong mid‑market wins, with 60% of firms saving more than €1 million (and 37% saving over €5 million), which turns modest pilots into budget‑worthy projects rather than one‑off experiments; see the EY European AI Barometer 2025 report and EY's EY Netherlands press release on AI implementation for the country detail.

Productivity gains are visible but uneven - around 44% report improvements and managers are much likelier to see benefits than non‑executive staff - which explains why investment in measurement, dashboards and targeted training (only ~24% satisfied with current employer training) turns perception into repeatable ROI. Picture a school back office that once needed a mountain of manual hours but now frees up an extra week a month for student support: that “small treasure chest” of reclaimed time is where numbers meet impact.

“The fact that the majority of management sees positive cost effects from the use of AI is a strong signal. AI has led to cost savings or increased revenue within companies in the Netherlands. AI pays off.” - Menno Bonninga, partner at EY in the Netherlands and AI Lead

The Netherlands' AI talent pipeline is growing fast but unevenly: AI‑broad programmes enrolled roughly 104,000 students in 2023/'24 while AI‑narrow - where AI is the core focus - doubled since 2018/'19 but still only accounts for about 7,000 students, a reminder that deep‑specialist capacity remains a small but rapidly expanding island inside a much larger field of AI‑aware graduates.

Employers see the pressure: regional demand concentrates in Noord‑Holland, Zuid‑Holland and Noord‑Brabant where most AI firms and vacancies are located, and universities and research organisations are among the top posters of AI roles, leaving many learners turning to non‑degree routes because credit programmes can't keep pace (see the CBS Dutch AI Monitor 2024 and reporting on how universities meet just a fraction of AI training demand).

The result for education companies: a steady stream of broadly skilled recruits, a thinner pool of specialists, and a clear hiring signal to invest in internal upskilling and targeted apprenticeship paths so that routine admin roles can transition into governance, RPA oversight and data‑lit positions rather than disappear.

“This is an exciting and confusing time, and if you haven't figured out how to make the best use of AI yet, you are not alone.” - Bill Gates

A practical implementation roadmap for education companies in the Netherlands starts by learning from where most pilots stall: pick a narrow, measurable use case - typically back‑office automation or admissions workflows - rather than betting the farm on broad classroom transforms, and buy proven vendor solutions when they fit (the MIT NANDA study found vendor tools succeed far more often than in‑house builds).

Run a short, KPI‑driven pilot (clear cost, time and quality metrics), pair it with targeted staff reskilling and prompt‑writing practice to close the “learning gap,” and treat governance and shadow AI as parallel workstreams so productivity gains aren't lost to compliance risk.

Scale only after the pilot shows repeatable savings and stable data flows; Grant Thornton's playbook echoes this phased approach, urging private organisations to use small, high‑impact pilots to fund expansion.

Practical actions for Dutch providers include choosing a back‑office pilot, contracting an experienced vendor, committing to 8–12 week measurement windows, and running concurrent training modules (see Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus: AI prompts and assessment design for hands‑on exercises).

The vivid payoff is simple: a school back office that once required a mountain of admin can become a single, reliable dashboard that frees weeks of staff time for students - if pilots are chosen, measured and governed well.

“The biggest issue is not that AI models aren't capable, but a ‘learning gap': people and organizations don't understand how to use AI tools properly or design workflows to capture the benefits.” - MIT report (The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025)

Ethics, privacy and governance are not abstract hurdles for Dutch education providers - they are practical project risks that can sink well‑intentioned pilots unless they're baked into design, procurement and funding decisions from day one.

Amsterdam's Smart Check experiment, exhaustively reported by MIT Technology Review, shows how an algorithm built under the “Responsible AI” playbook still produced shifting biases in live deployment and was ultimately shelved after roughly €500,000 plus a €35,000 consultancy fee, while the Participation Council of benefits recipients withdrew support - a vivid caution that technical audits alone don't guarantee social legitimacy (MIT Technology Review: Inside Amsterdam Smart Check algorithm experiment).

The Dutch policy ecosystem does offer tools to manage this risk - an Algorithm Register for transparency and pragmatic national guidance - and academic work such as the APPRAISE governance framework finds many Dutch organisations score low on actual EU AI Act compliance and that larger organisations tend to be better aligned, which points to the need for clear governance roles, lifecycle documentation and external audits before scaling (APPRAISE governance framework study (AAAI), Dutch Algorithm Register and pragmatic AI governance approach).

For education companies this means: prioritise low‑risk pilots, ringfence budgets for independent bias testing and impact assessments, involve affected stakeholders early, and treat governance and training as line items - not optional extras - if savings are to survive public scrutiny and compliance with incoming EU rules.

“Niente, zero, nada. We're not going to do that anymore.” - Rutger Groot Wassink, on ending Amsterdam's Smart Check pilot

For beginners in the Netherlands the path from curiosity to impact is clear and practical: start with a tightly scoped, measurable pilot focused on high‑volume admin or admissions workflows, embed the Dutch 3E evidence practices to vet vendors and impact (see the Dutch 3E Framework case study), and pick platforms or partners that lower technical barriers so staff can automate without long build cycles - exactly the approach highlighted in the AI automation guide for the Netherlands, which also notes national support and a €276 million programme to scale AI. Pair pilots with focused staff reskilling - prompt writing and hands‑on tool practice - to turn reclaimed admin hours into extra student support; a targeted option is Nucamp's 15‑week AI Essentials for Work bootcamp, which teaches practical prompts and job‑based AI skills.

Start small, measure hard, document governance, and iterate - then scale what demonstrably saves time and money while protecting student data and equity.

“While international frameworks offer helpful models, they don't always reflect the distinctive features of Dutch education… The 3E Framework fills this gap. It's not about reinventing the wheel - it's about making sure the wheel fits the Dutch road.” - Prof. T.C. Bakker & Dr. Manika Garg