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Rabat – As artificial intelligence pushes its way into classrooms across the world, anxiety remains strong among teachers, parents, and policymakers.
For Hatem Sallam, Co-Founder and CEO of EduSofx, that anxiety reflects a deeper problem: education technology often grows far from real classrooms.
Speaking to Morocco World News (MWN) ahead of the AI Everything MEA event in Egypt, Sallam shared a long-view perspective shaped by 25 years in education technology, academic work, and on-the-ground leadership inside schools and universities. He firmly believes that AI should support educators, not replace them.
A career choice rooted in education, not profit
Sallam traced the origins of EduSofx to a conscious decision early in his career.
“I made a very deliberate choice, I would say 25 years ago, going to one sector that was not that sexy for a lot of people, which is education technology,” he said.
While other technology sectors promised higher financial returns, Sallam saw education as a structural priority for the region. “I was very aware of what’s going on in our region, specifically in the Maya region, and the need to really find solutions for very high quality education at much lower cost.”
What troubled him most was how education systems treated technology as optional. “If you work in a university or school, and the system is down, nobody cares, we’re going to continue learning somehow,” he said. “So somehow, there is a gap between the technology people, and how they look at the education industry, and the educators who are in charge of this whole process.”
Sallam chose to work across multiple layers of education, from daily school operations to system design and academic research. “I believe it was a good mission to try to participate in closing this gap, and bringing the value of technology while not losing sight of the education sector’s real needs.”
AI use today creates distance inside classrooms
Sallam warned that current AI use risks deepening separation between teachers and students.
“Both are working in isolation, teachers and students,” he said, referring to separate AI tools on each side. “This gap actually with AI is even more and more, and the distance is becoming greater.”
He described a long-standing “black box” between teaching and learning, where educators rarely see how students process knowledge. AI, he argued, has widened that divide rather than closing it.
EduSofx approached this challenge through a model Sallam calls Educator in the Loop, which the company patented.
“All the touch points of a student with the system are recorded and analyzed in both quantitative and qualitative manners,” he said. These insights reach educators, who then combine data with real-world understanding of students’ lives and pressures.
“So it becomes like a co-teacher who is instructed by educators themselves,” Sallam said. “Now the educator role is shifting from being a knowledge transfer tool or machine into being an architect who architects the whole education or learning scenarios and process.”
Reducing pressure instead of adding more tools
As teachers already operate under intense pressure, Sallam acknowledged, EduSofx aims to reduce complexity rather than add to it.
“At least 80% or 90% of the benefit out of Edusofx learning body is coming without writing even one prompt,” he said. “Just by clicking a few buttons, you will achieve a lot.”
Teachers receive visual dashboards that reveal class-wide and individual patterns. The system suggests actions instead of demanding written instructions. “They just click add this action, nothing more,” Sallam said.
For educators with limited time, simplicity remains central. “A lot of what’s happening is just a click away,” he added.
EduSofx also addressed the fragmentation of AI tools across platforms. “To achieve good results with AI now, you need to work with many tools,” Sallam said.
The company integrated multiple AI models into one system while keeping costs low through usage analysis and engineering design. “You are benefiting from the best of all these models at once,” Sallam explained.
Resistance to AI comes at a cost
From Sallam’s perspective, rejection of AI creates its own risks.
“The more you resist AI, the more you’re going to lose,” he said. “It’s not a game between human beings and AI. It’s a game between people who know AI and people who don’t.”
He advised schools and educators to start small. “Try something. Try a small thing. And don’t stay away,” he said. He compared AI adoption to modern travel habits. “Staying away will not help you. You cannot escape.”
Ethics, visibility, and cultural boundaries
Concerns about ethics, surveillance, and student well-being often dominate discussions on AI in education. Sallam insisted that transparency must replace secrecy.
“We now have a collaborative process,” he said. “Instead of the current dark era that we are living in, we don’t know exactly what students are doing with AI.”
He stressed that Edusofx does not aim to monitor students for punishment. “We are not trying to somehow do surveillance on what they do or limit their utilization,” he said. Consent, privacy, and oversight remain central, with GDPR compliance built into the platform.
Cultural context also matters. “We also implemented the highest level of guardrails,” Sallam said, “that takes into consideration local cultures.”
AI Everything Egypt and a chance to close global gaps
At AI Everything MEA Egypt 2026, Sallam said EduSofx plans to present a practical example rather than bold claims.
“We are not saying that we are the best in the world,” he said. “We built something that we believe we can contribute positively.”
He sees AI as a chance to reduce disparities in education access. “We can bring costs very down and provide much higher quality education,” he said. “Once this is in place, our youth, they have the talent and they will do great.”
A future built on just-in-time learning
Looking ahead, Sallam avoided fixed predictions. “Nobody can tell exactly at the moment how it will look like in one year,” he said.
Still, he pointed to major shifts. One involves what he calls “just-in-time learning,” where knowledge arrives when needed rather than through accumulation. “You open your phone, you search something, you start learning about it,” he said.
He is convinced that this will reshape assessment. “Why should I wait till a moment to do a formal assessment?” he asked.
Instead, daily learning may become the measure itself. “What you do on a daily basis will contribute to your evaluation,” Sallam said, reshaping how students connect with future opportunities.
For Sallam, AI does not threaten education. Instead, used with care and clarity, it restores trust in teachers and gives classrooms the support they long lacked.
