Moving Education Ecosystems Beyond the Artificial Intelligence Hype

This editorial introduces the first issue in 2026 of Intelligent Technologies in Education (ITEd), which features emerging research exploring the transformative challenges and opportunities of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in higher education. The collective findings illustrate GenAI's pervasive impact across four main pillars: (1) curriculum design, (2) assessment integrity, (3) pedagogical practices, and (4) institutional policy. A central theme woven throughout the issue is the critical need for ethics and integrity, with multiple authors emphasizing that AI should augment rather than supplant human teaching. The featured research highlights proposed models to seamlessly integrate AI literacy into student competencies, while simultaneously warning that GenAI’s capacity to perform strongly on rigorous tasks forces an urgent rethink of valid assessment designs. The issue also explores the complementary potential of AI in driving educational feedback and recommender systems, though it notes a significant support gap where instructors still face uneven guidance and policies. Rather than offering a checklist of responses to GenAI, this editorial develops a question-oriented agenda for future research on intelligent technologies across educational sectors. Echoing emerging calls to shift from prohibition toward pedagogical innovation, this editorial argues that moving beyond AI hype requires clearer educational purposes, stronger evidence, and a broader understanding of intelligent technologies as part of changing education ecosystems.