How to Choose the Right AI Vendor for Your School

When discussing how to evaluate AI vendors in education, I reflect on my time teaching English and my lessons in Aristotle’s approach to persuasive writing. In those lessons, I aimed to ensure my students understood his three pillars of persuasion: Ethos, pathos, and logos. As my career moved into education policy, school administration, and now as Head of Privacy and Trust for GoGuardian, I have continued to find these three pillars particularly helpful - and particularly now as schools are trying to cut through the hype and noise when selecting an AI vendor they can trust.

Top considerations when selecting an AI Vendor 

1. What’s the company’s ethos?

When evaluating a company’s credibility, it’s important to ask: What is their ethos? What’s their corporate belief system? Are they purpose-built for education? It’s easy to make tools that claim to be for teachers but are just consumer tools.

Look for providers that create edtech because they believe in making the lives and learning experiences of admins, teachers, and students better. Their ethos should be rooted in supporting educators, not just chasing after what they think will make them the most money.

Be sure to check for a principled approach to how they handle technology and data. Do they publish statements or blogs about their principles and how they build their tools? Do they have third-party privacy validations, such as iKeepSafe? Do they have industry certifications like 1 EdTech?

For example, GoGuardian is part of the EdSAFE AI industry council, and we regularly meet with other edtech vendors to define what responsible AI in education should look like. If a company is truly committed to education, it will show up in everything they do, from how they build tools to how they talk about their mission.

2. Does the AI vendor understand and respect educators?

There’s a human side to this work (the pathos), and vendors should both understand the important role of educators and operate from a place of respecting the teaching profession. As a former educator, I would pay close attention to how a company talks about administrators, IT professionals, counselors, and teachers.

Do they elevate educators’ voices authentically, or are they just cherry-picking a few quotes out of context? Have they taken the time to truly speak with and understand what teachers want from the technology they use in class every day? Anyone who has been or knows a teacher has seen that they are scrappy, hardworking people who will duct-tape the world together to do what’s best for their kids.

If a vendor implies AI will replace rather than support teaching, that’s an immediate red flag. Instead, look for those who value the role of educators and build tools to empower them.

3. Are their AI tools built for the classroom?

Of course, ethos and empathy are vital - but they are not everything - and this is where logos (logic) comes into play. You can have all the right principles and say the right things, but if the underlying technology and learning science itself is junk, none of that matters. 

At GoGuardian and Pear Deck Learning, we’ve been building AI tools for over a decade, long before the buzz around generative AI. Our content filters and threat detection tools like GoGuardian Beacon are powered by machine learning and trained in collaboration with mental health professionals to flag activity that might suggest a student is considering harming themselves or others.

On the instructional side, generative AI is at the heart of Pear Start, which allows teachers to input just a few details, such as subject, grade, and learning goals, and receive back an entire standards-aligned lesson set, including interactive slides, practice activities, and assessments.

But here's the key: It's all built with intention and oversight. 

We prioritize student privacy and responsible AI use. All our tools are certified for student data privacy. We use custom prompt engineering and keep a human in the loop. Teachers review and adjust what the AI generates to ensure the output is accurate, contextually appropriate, and aligned with learning goals.

What to look for in an AI vendor

Building with educators, not just for them

At GoGuardian, educator feedback isn’t just a step in the process—it’s foundational. For years, our product management teams have worked closely with teachers and school leaders to continuously improve our core solutions. This commitment to listening and iterating has always guided how we build.

To take that partnership even further, we launched the Innovation Incubator, an industry-leading program that formalizes educator collaboration across Pear Deck Learning and now, GoGuardian. Since 2022, the Innovation Incubator has partnered with more than 200 educators across 35 states to co-develop Pear Deck Learning products, with over 50% of participants working inTitle 1 schools. Now in its 7th cohort, the program gives teachers early access to new tools, invites feedback, and encourages them to suggest new features.

If a teacher says, “I wish it could do X,” we move fast to prototype a solution, sometimes within days. Through this agile, real-world design loop, educators don’t just influence our roadmap: they help build the platform alongside us.

What to watch out for

Of course, not every vendor operates with this level of care. The AI space can feel like the wild west, and it’s worth being cautious. Always be wary of snake oil, such as companies claiming, “This tool will solve all your problems!” That’s not how this works.

Here are some things to avoid:

• Overpromises that sound too good to be true
  
  
• Slick interfaces that are used to mask underdeveloped tools
  
  
• Consumer-first tools repackaged for education

Instead, look for vendors who have been in edtech, are committed to it, and are building with care and intent.

When evaluating AI tools for your school or district, it’s not about flash, but foundation. Use ethos to assess the company’s values, pathos to understand their relationship with educators, and logos to determine whether the technology actually works.

Think principle over polish, and that’s how we’ll ensure AI serves education, not the other way around.

‍

‍

To witness firsthand how ethical, educator-first AI works in action, schedule your demo today.