AAA<\/p>\n
When university lecturer Luke Rowe decided to replace his recorded online lecture with an AI-generated avatar of himself, he expected his students would notice immediately that something was amiss.<\/p>\n
Instead, most were unable to initially differentiate between the real recording and the avatar. And once they could, students said they preferred the AI version of Rowe.<\/p>\n
![\"\u201cHopefully,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1ec330abb532462c1d00e865fcbd01087620cb7e.jpeg\")
\u201cHopefully, my human judgment will exceed that of AI\u201d: ACU education lecturer and researcher Luke Rowe.Simon Schluter<\/p>\n
\u201cI was eating humble pie, and I was sitting there going, \u2018Why is that?\u2019\u201d the senior education researcher at Australian Catholic University said.<\/p>\n
One reason was that the avatar had a smoother and deeper sounding voice than Rowe. There were other telltale signs that should have alerted students, but seemingly didn\u2019t, at least not at first \u2013 hand gestures that misaligned with speech, and the eyes of the avatar being difficult to read, for example.<\/p>\n
Before conducting the experiment with his class, which is itself focused on AI ethics, Rowe had to get approval from the university.<\/p>\n
Though ACU said it has no plans to replace academics with AI avatars, the experiment was part of its aim to teach students about responsibly using tools they will find in the workforce.<\/p>\n
Rowe said the avatar had plenty of benefits for personalising learning. Students can change the language it speaks in or speed up the cadence. From a teaching perspective, the AI avatar allows the researcher to edit and update lectures, keeping lessons up to date.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully, my human judgment will exceed that of AI,\u201d he said of delivering lectures himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if we\u2019re talking of efficiency, no way; AI can absolutely do this more efficiently than I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent years, a number of Australian universities have moved away from traditional hour-long lectures towards online mini-lectures.<\/p>\n
However, educators are yet to understand the effect avatars will have on how students learn online and the trust they have in teachers, Rowe said.<\/p>\n
Related Article \u201cFrom a human perspective, students can smell a lack of authenticity a mile away,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd when you\u2019re authentic, and you genuinely care about them, and you ask them how they\u2019re going and care about how much they learn, they will enjoy it and engage more.\u201d<\/p>\n Early research also suggests people need to master knowledge and skills with their own brain<\/a> before they start to complement their thinking with AI.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pyramid is built from the bottom up,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n University of Melbourne deputy vice chancellor of education Gregor Kennedy said the university was taking a balanced approach to introducing AI.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re moving towards an AI study buddy situation at the moment, but we\u2019re certainly trialling tools that help students navigate administrative aspects of the university,\u201d he said. \u201cFrom my point of view, we\u2019ve got to think about not undermining the teacher and student relationship that is fundamental to a good education.\u201d<\/p>\n The university currently requires that half of all assessments in many subjects are secure from students offloading their thinking to AI. This can involve oral assessments, where they explain the thinking behind their essays, and timed exams.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents do the essay, and then you\u2019re in a dialogue with students about what they\u2019ve prepared,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cIt\u2019s useful for the student; it\u2019s useful for the assessor.\u201d<\/p>\n La Trobe University, which labels itself an \u201cAI-first university\u201d, introduced an AI-powered robot last month to help trainee and early career teachers simulate difficult conversations with parents.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a central initiative to roll out avatars, but we\u2019ll be following with a very keen interest any innovation in this space,\u201d La Trobe vice chancellor Theo Farrell said.<\/p>\n While he can foresee a day when AI assists teachers with marking student work, Farrell stresses decisions such as these will ultimately be up to academic boards to advise on and approve.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started teaching decades ago, because of the volume of essays that we had to read, we produced a template \u2026 and then there would be a scale of one to 10, and you would tick where it was and provide two lines of comments at the bottom,\u201d Farrell said.<\/p>\n \u201cNow you can imagine quite precise feedback that\u2019s given by an AI agent, where at the end of the day, you\u2019ve read the essay and pushed ideas to the AI tool, but you don\u2019t have to write the actual feedback. It produces the feedback, you review it, and you calibrate it based on your review.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Video<\/p>\n He said educators needed to be supported to trial how AI tools could be used to enhance learning.<\/p>\n \u201cIt could be possible that in five to 10 years\u2019 time we will see a very different learning experience. We\u2019re still stuck in the industrial age in the way that we teach, but AI offers us that hyper-personalised experience.\u201d<\/p>\n The sector\u2019s regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency, has standards that all higher-education providers must comply with regardless of whether courses are delivered by academics or supported by AI tools.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents should understand how technology is being used in their learning and should not be misled about the nature of the teaching,\u201d a spokesperson for the agency said.<\/p>\n \u201cUsed appropriately, technology can support innovation, accessibility and new approaches to teaching and learning. Technologies such as avatars in teaching can have legitimate educational applications.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is important is that the use of technology is intentional, purposeful, educationally sound and appropriately transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Fluent](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789413385_144_b918cff1d3a69003d6cbcc730879991e086834ab6c0d8c33a360cdf24a9b843f.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Jackson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4024faa7e42c773f745045be8e18d252909a649a.png\")
Jackson Graham<\/a> is an education reporter at The Age. He was previously an explainer reporter.Connect via email<\/a>.![\"Nicole](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/4f1538ddabce0333c200819c125bb89ef36630fe7a4f9f7b0bf55fda4255b455.png\")
Nicole Precel<\/a> is an education reporter at The Age. She was previously an audio video producer. She is also a documentary maker. Get in touch at nicole.precel@theage.com.auConnect via X<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 14, 2026 \u2014 3:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-892005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}