What is it about?
Educational institutions and their administration face mounting pressure to adopt AI, yet many initiatives stall because strategic plans remain disconnected from educators' values and practical needs. Drawing on nine studies, we examine where AI appears in educational strategic plans and what enables or hinders educators’ adoption. Most AI initiatives emerged during the implementation stage through pilots, tools, and training programs. Adoption succeeds when leadership commitment, policy support, professional development, and infrastructure advance in concert; it falters when resources are constrained, privacy and bias risks remain unaddressed, or staff perceive overreliance on AI. A critical finding is that educator acceptance mediates the relationship between strategic planning and real-world implementation. For Euro-Mediterranean institutions, effective adoption begins with small-scale, well-governed pilots that allow educators to test value in controlled settings. Progress endures when roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and aligned with the EU AI Act, embedding compliance into daily practice rather than treating it as an afterthought. Practical measures of educator acceptance (straightforward indicators of usefulness, workload fit, and trust) anchor implementation to institutions’ reality. Together, these steps convert short-term pilots into sustainable, mission-aligned improvements.
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Why is it important?
AI is entering education quickly, but adoption often remains fragmented, tool-driven, and poorly connected to institutional strategy or educators’ needs. This article is timely because educational institutions must now address key challenges such as ethics, privacy, governance, professional development, trust, and responsible use. Its unique contribution is that it links strategic planning for AI with educator acceptance, two areas often discussed separately. Rather than simply listing barriers to AI adoption, the review shows how governance, training, policy support, and clear implementation processes can help turn isolated AI initiatives into sustainable, mission-aligned educational change.
Perspectives
For me, this publication began from a simple concern: AI is increasingly present in education, but its adoption is often discussed as if access to new tools automatically leads to meaningful change. This review gave me the opportunity to look more closely at what happens between intention and implementation. What stood out most was the limited evidence connecting institutional planning with educators’ everyday acceptance and use of AI. I see this work as a step toward a more grounded conversation, one that treats educators not as passive users of technology but as central actors in shaping whether AI becomes useful, responsible, and sustainable in educational practice
Mavroudis Georgiadis
International Hellenic University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Strategic alignment in AI in education: a scoping review of planning-cycle levers and educator acceptance, EuroMed Journal of Business, April 2026, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/emjb-11-2025-0438.
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