GEMS Education and Napster Partner to Develop Human-Centred AI for Schools
GEMS Education has partnered with AI company Napster to explore how AI agents and digital personas can be used to support teaching, learning and personal development across K-12 education.
The collaboration will begin at GEMS School of Research & Innovation (SRI), where the GEMS Global Education AI Hub and GEMS Intelligence 360 platform will provide an environment for teachers, students and partners to design, test and evaluate potential applications.
The partnership comes as education systems across the region look to establish a more structured role for AI in classrooms. The UAE Cabinet recently approved measures to introduce an AI curriculum across the country’s education sector, including training for 22,000 educators in areas such as AI-assisted teaching, assessment, curriculum analysis and lesson planning.
Testing AI in the classroom
GEMS and Napster will initially investigate applications covering guided practice, formative feedback, communication and presentation skills, reflection and goal setting, personalised skills development and professional learning for educators.
The partners plan to develop proof-of-concept projects and demonstrations, including digital versions of instructors, gamified learning, AI-assisted content creation and classroom simulations.
Napster will contribute design, development and product management resources based on Napster Learn, its AI-powered learning platform designed to provide learners with round-the-clock access to course resources and mentorship.
The longer-term objective is to develop a solution that can be deployed across GEMS schools in the Middle East and beyond, with the partners targeting a working release before the end of 2026.
“AI should strengthen the human relationships at the heart of education, not diminish them,” said Jay Varkey, Deputy CEO of GEMS Education. “By combining our educational expertise and reach with Napster’s agent and digital personas capabilities, we aim to build a responsible model that supports the UAE’s ambition and can help set a positive global benchmark for K-12 education.”
Digital expertise, with human oversight
One proposed application is the creation of digital twins based on teachers’ subject-matter knowledge. These could give students access to approved educational content and teacher-informed expertise outside school hours and in multiple languages.
GEMS said the technology is intended to extend the reach of teachers rather than replace them. The initiative will incorporate guardrails and safety protocols during design, development and evaluation, with human oversight maintained throughout.
The partners also plan to assess how participants use the technology and their levels of engagement, using the findings to evaluate its effectiveness and usefulness in educational settings.
“Our focus is to establish where AI agents and digital personas genuinely improve learning, feedback, confidence, and personal development,” said Baz Nijjar, Senior Vice President, Innovation, AI & Futurism and Managing Director, Intelligence 360 at GEMS Education. “SRI and the GEMS Global Education AI Hub allow us to co-design and evaluate these capabilities with teachers and students, with safeguarding, age-appropriateness, and human oversight built in from the outset.”
John Acunto, CEO of Napster, said, “AI is reshaping every industry, and there is no sector where getting the approach right matters more than education. This partnership with GEMS gives us the chance to build responsible infrastructure to enable student success. Napster’s goal is to democratize access to expertise, and the best place to start is in the classroom.”
A wider regional focus
The GEMS collaboration forms part of Napster’s wider push into education and AI across the Middle East. The company recently announced plans to establish an EdTech and Embodied-AI Center of Excellence with Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University in Riyadh and Nourah Cloud.
Samuel Huber, CEO of MENA for Napster, said, “Every school system across the Gulf is working to translate a national AI ambition into actual classroom strategy. GEMS Education is taking this sentiment and expanding it to an entire network of schools at a time when AI education is moving quickly. We intend to bring this model to more school systems across the region.”
GEMS said the scale of the partnership is intended to move beyond AI pilots limited to individual schools or departments, using its wider school network as a potential environment for testing and evaluating the technology.
