More than four hundred educators from Augustinian schools gathered in Spain for the XXXII Augustinian Educational Forum 2026 to discuss the integration of artificial intelligence without losing the spiritual core of the mission.
The forum, organized by the Augustinian family of educational institutions, was held under the motto of humanizing AI through the lens of Saint Augustine's charism. Participants emphasized the need to maintain focus on the person, the inner world, and the communal dimension of education.
The approach's mechanism is built on three interconnected lines of action. The first is education for AI: forming ethical and critical competence to discern the risks of misinformation and bias. The second is education about AI: studying the principles of how algorithms work and their limitations. The third is education with AI: pedagogical integration of tools where the teacher remains an indispensable mediator accompanying the student in the process of discernment. The analogy is simple: AI is like a powerful flashlight that illuminates the path but does not replace a companion who can notice when the light distorts reality.
The forum's data are in the nature of reflections and presentations, not controlled studies. The speakers' presentations, including Sister Ana Maria Guantay and Brother Carlos González, draw on the Augustinian tradition, but there are no quantitative indicators of effectiveness or long-term observations in classrooms. The limitation is obvious: the approach remains at the level of conceptual recommendations without empirical verification in large-scale pilots.
This exposes a deeper tension in the modern school: the pursuit of technological efficiency risks displacing relationships that require time and presence. The Augustinian emphasis on interiority challenges the assumption that algorithms alone can ensure the holistic development of the person.
How will the daily practice of the teacher change when each lesson begins not with a query to AI, but with a question about what is happening in the student's heart?
