Which AI use cases in education are high risk under the EU AI Act?

Annex III point 3(d) lists AI systems intended to be used for monitoring and detecting prohibited behavior of students during tests in the context of education and training institutions as high risk. One to one biometric identity verification, confirming a test taker is who they claim to be, falls outside the biometric identification use covered by Annex III point 1(a). The Article 5 restriction that does apply is different: Article 5(1)(f) prohibits AI systems that infer emotions in an education institution, so the behavioral analysis in this use case must stay limited to security signals such as identity and typing patterns, and must not be built or read as emotion inference.

Annex III point 3(a): AI systems intended to be used to determine access or admission or to assign natural persons to educational and vocational training institutions at all levels are high risk. Even where the AI only recommends or scores one part of the file, the system is intended to be used in the admission process. Scoring an applicant's essay is profiling, so the Article 6(3) exemption for narrow procedural or preparatory tasks does not apply. Providers then need risk management, data governance, logging and human oversight, and the university as deployer has the duties in Article 26.

Annex III point 3(b): AI systems intended to be used to evaluate learning outcomes in educational and vocational training institutions at all levels are high risk. Scoring that determines access to an institution or the level of education a student will receive is also covered by points 3(a) and 3(c). Schools and exam bodies that use such a system have the deployer obligations of Article 26.

A tutor that only converses with students falls under the transparency duty of Article 50. It becomes high risk under Annex III point 3(b) when it evaluates learning outcomes, including when those outcomes are used to steer a student's learning process, and under point 3(c) when it assesses the level of education a student should receive. Inferring students' emotions is prohibited in education institutions under Article 5(1)(f).

An assistant that answers questions and sends reminders falls under the transparency duty of Article 50. It becomes high risk under Annex III point 3(a) if it is used to determine access or admission or to assign students to institutions, and under point 3(c) if it assesses the level of education a student will receive. Keep admission and placement decisions with staff.

The risk score itself, used only to inform an advisor and prompt a human conversation, sits outside Annex III. It moves toward high risk under Annex III point 3(b) if its output is used to evaluate a student's learning outcomes or to steer the learning process, rather than only to prompt a conversation; a score built mainly on grades and coursework can come close to that line. Once a student replies, the AI agent that answers them and sends outreach messages interacts directly with a natural person and falls under the Article 50 transparency duty, so the student must be told they are talking to an AI system unless this is obvious from context. Keep the actual decision about a student's support or standing with a person to stay on the lower tier.

Screening for a weapon shape, or searching footage by a described attribute such as clothing, is not itself the remote biometric identification or categorization of a natural person, as long as it flags an object or an attribute rather than matching or categorizing an individual. It becomes high risk under Annex III point 1(a) if the system performs remote biometric identification, whether real time or after the fact and in any setting, for example matching faces against a watchlist, and under Annex III point 1(b) if it performs biometric categorization. It is high risk under Annex III point 6 if used by or on behalf of law enforcement for profiling a natural person. Real time remote biometric identification by or on behalf of law enforcement in a publicly accessible space is prohibited outright under Article 5(1)(h), subject only to its narrow, listed exceptions.

Transcription and captioning are not listed in Annex III and are not a prohibited practice under Article 5, so the tier depends on how captions are published. Article 50(4) requires deployers to disclose AI generated or manipulated text published to inform the public on matters of public interest, such as news captions, unless it has undergone human review or editorial control and someone holds editorial responsibility, so the editor step keeps most deployments outside this duty. The provider duty to mark output in Article 50(2) does not apply where the system does not substantially alter the input or its semantics, which fits same language transcription better than translated subtitles. Unreviewed news captions or subtitles should therefore be disclosed as automatic.

An assistant that answers informational questions about courses and requirements, without deciding admission, assigning students to an institution, or evaluating learning outcomes, falls under the transparency duty of Article 50: students must be told they are talking to AI. It would move toward Annex III point 3 (education and vocational training) if it were used to determine access or admission to an institution or program (point 3(a)), or to evaluate learning outcomes, including when those outcomes are used to steer the learning process (point 3(b)).

A conversational assistant that interacts with people falls under the transparency duty of Article 50: users must be told they are dealing with an AI system unless that is obvious. A research assistant that finds and summarizes sources is not an Annex III use, as long as it is not used for the education purposes Annex III lists, such as deciding admission, evaluating learning outcomes, assessing the level of education a person can access or monitoring students during tests.

A tool that only drafts planning materials for teachers is not listed in Annex III. Annex III point 3 covers education systems that determine access or admission, evaluate learning outcomes, assess the level of education a person will receive or monitor prohibited behavior in tests. The assistant would become high risk under point 3(b) if it were used to evaluate pupils' work or steer a pupil's learning on the basis of its outcomes. The AI literacy duty in Article 4 applies to schools as deployers.