The 7 Best SchoolAI Alternatives for Teachers and Schools in 2026
This guide compares SchoolAI with Brisk and six other tools so you can find the one that fits your classroom. If you're comparing SchoolAI alternatives, the main questions are usually:
- What you can do on a free plan
- How closely you can see what students type
- Whether you also want AI help with your own planning and feedback.
We've included tools for K-12 teachers and the coaches and administrators who choose them, from guided student AI activities to lesson prep and live response tools, with what each one costs and the safety controls it offers.
SchoolAI alternatives at a glance
SchoolAI in brief
SchoolAI is an AI platform built for schools. Its main feature is Spaces, which are AI learning activities that a teacher designs and students work through with Dot, SchoolAI's student-facing AI. While students work, Mission Control shows the teacher who is engaged, where students are stuck, and suggested next steps. It also offers PowerUps, smaller AI apps for practice, and a browser extension for lesson creation and feedback. SchoolAI says Dot flags crises in real time and that its AI providers can't train on student data.
The free plan is a trial with 5 Space launches a year, and it leaves out student uploads, LMS integration, rostering, and usage reports. The Pro and Scale plans add unlimited launches and alerts routed to administrators, but their prices aren't published, so using Spaces every week usually means a school or district plan.
How we chose these alternatives
Our list covers the jobs schools use SchoolAI for, such as guided student activities, live checks for understanding, and teacher prep. Because SchoolAI is mainly used with students, we gave extra weight to safety controls, such as whether a teacher can read every response and what each company says about student data. Six of the seven tools have a free plan an individual teacher can start with. GoGuardian is the exception, since it's sold to districts. All features and prices come from each company's website as of October 16, 2026, so double-check pricing before you commit to a plan.
We're the team behind Brisk, so Brisk comes first on this list. We've described SchoolAI and the other tools as fairly as we can, and each entry includes a "Skip it if" note for when another option fits better.
1. Brisk: best for teacher prep, feedback, and guided student activities
Brisk is a comprehensive education platform that helps you put together lessons, activities, and feedback that support personalized, standards-aligned instruction. Brisk offers a free browser extension for Chrome and Edge and is designed to work where teachers work: in Google Docs, Slides, Forms, and Classroom, as well as on YouTube videos, PDFs, and websites.
Key features
- Create: more than 30 planning tools, 20+ of them free, such as the Quiz Generator, Lesson Plan Generator, and Rubric Generator.
- Give Feedback: feedback styles such as Glow & Grow and rubric criteria, plus Batch Feedback for a folder of student work, and students only see feedback after you approve it.
- Change Level: adjusts a text to any reading level from grade 1 to 12, with translation into 50+ languages.
- Inspect Writing: shows a replay of a student's Google Doc as it was written, including typing, deletions, and pastes, which gives you a starting point for a conversation about their process.
Brisk Boost, Brisk’s student-facing AI experience, turns a resource or an idea into one of 14 guided activities, such as Tutor, Debate, Exit Ticket, and Writing Coach. You set the grade level, language, guardrails, and learning goal, preview the activity, and share it with a link, QR code, or class code, so students don't need an account to join. During the activity, you can see every student's chat on a live dashboard, and Brisk flags chats that include profanity, insults, or violence. You can use Boost on the free plan.
Pricing: Brisk is free for teachers. School and district plans are quoted per school or district and include admin tools, data privacy agreements, rostering, and more Boost options. Brisk states that it complies with FERPA and COPPA, is SOC 2, Type 2 attested, and never uses student or teacher inputs to train AI models.
Choose it if: you want AI help with your own planning, grading, and feedback, and you'd like to try guided student AI activities without setting up student accounts.
Skip it if: you plan to use AI mainly with students rather than for your own prep, or you do your planning on a tablet rather than a laptop or desktop.
You can start using Brisk for free and try it on the next lesson you plan.
2. AI chatbots: best for open-ended planning help and teacher-built study tools
Teachers can use Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude for free. You can use one conversation to draft a lesson plan and then a note home to families, although you write and refine the prompts yourself. Only some of them are meant for students, so check which versions your school has turned on before you plan a student activity.
Key features
- Gemini in Classroom is included in every Google Workspace for Education edition. Teachers can build a Gem, which is a custom Gemini such as a study partner or quiz partner, or a NotebookLM notebook grounded in their own materials, and share it with students on the Classwork page. Your admin has to turn these features on.
- ChatGPT for Teachers is free for verified US K-12 staff, but students aren't eligible.
- Copilot's Teach module comes with Microsoft 365 education licenses for teachers, and schools can turn on Copilot Chat for students.
- Claude for Teachers is free for verified US K-12 educators and isn't meant for students.
Pricing: Free for verified educators, and the Gemini and Copilot features are part of your school's existing Google or Microsoft license.
Choose it if: you're comfortable writing prompts and your school already uses Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, so you can ask your admin to turn on the student features.
Skip it if: you need to read every student conversation as it happens or get alerts about what students type. For now, these tools give teachers less visibility into student chats than a platform built for classroom monitoring.
💡Brisk Tip: Brisk connects with Claude, Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT, allowing you to level up your prompts with educational context — Brisk adds grade level, standards, and scaffolding built in.
3. Padlet: best for moderated class discussion boards
Some activities you might run in SchoolAI, such as brainstorming, exit tickets, and class discussions, work without an AI chat. Padlet gives students a shared board where they post text, images, links, audio, and video, and you can keep it organized as a wall, a timeline, a map, or columns.
Key features
- Boards for discussion, brainstorming, and exit tickets that students can join with a link.
- Safety Net, which uses AI to review each new post and holds anything it judges inappropriate until you approve or reject it. You can also require approval for every post.
Pricing: The free plan allows 3 padlets and 20 MB uploads. Platinum costs $120 a year for one teacher, and the Classroom plan costs $160 a year for 2 teachers and 100 student accounts and adds content safety features. School and district plans start at $1,200 a year for 10 teachers.
Choose it if: you want students to share ideas and respond to each other, with posts checked before the class sees them.
Skip it if: you need more than 3 boards and don't want to pay, or you want students to get AI feedback on their work.
4. Nearpod: best for interactive lessons, live or student-paced
Nearpod lets you check every student's understanding during a lesson without giving students an open AI chat. You build polls, quizzes, and drawing activities into your slides, then run the lesson live or let students work through it on their own. Students join with a code, and a report afterward shows each student's answers.
Key features
- More than 20 activity types, plus a library of ready-made lessons you can adapt.
- Teacher-paced lessons in real time, or student-paced ones for homework and stations.
- AI question generation for teachers on Gold, with more AI lesson tools on school and district plans.
Pricing: Silver is free for up to 40 students per lesson with 300 MB of storage. Gold ($159 a year) raises that to 75 students and 1 GB, Platinum costs $397 a year, and school and district plans are priced by quote.
Choose it if: you want to see responses from the whole class while you teach, and you'd rather keep AI on the teacher side.
Skip it if: you want students to have one-on-one AI tutoring or practice.
💡Brisk Tip: Brisk’s Quiz Generator offers teachers the option to generate curriculum-aligned quizzes and send them straight to Nearpod, ready to assign.
5. Pear Deck: best for interactive questions in your own slides
Pear Deck adds interactive questions to slides you've already made, so you don't have to rebuild lessons on a new platform. You use it as a Google Slides add-on or in PowerPoint Online.
Key features
- Questions and polls added to your slides, which students answer on their own devices.
- The option to display answers anonymously, so no one is singled out.
- A student-paced mode, and on Premium, a Teacher Dashboard plus drawing and draggable responses.
Pricing: Core question types are free. Premium is $149 a year, and schools and districts can request a quote.
Choose it if: your lessons already live in Google Slides and you want a quick way to hear from every student.
Skip it if: you want a private view of each student's answers without paying, since the Teacher Dashboard is a Premium feature.
6. Edpuzzle: best for interactive video lessons
Edpuzzle lets you take a YouTube video or one of your own, add questions and notes at specific points, and assign it. You can then see who watched, how many times, and how each student answered.
Key features
- Questions and notes embedded in any video, with an option to stop students from skipping ahead.
- Teacher Assist, an AI tool that suggests questions for a video and helps you grade open-ended answers.
- Assignments you can share through Google Classroom, Canvas, Schoology, and other LMSes.
Pricing: The free plan lets you save up to 20 activities. Pro Teacher, an individual paid plan, removes the limit, and schools can buy licenses for all their teachers.
Choose it if: video is a regular part of your lessons and you want to check understanding as students watch.
Skip it if: you rarely use video, or you'll need more than 20 activities and your school doesn't have a license.
7. GoGuardian: best for district oversight of student devices and AI use
Unlike the other tools on this list, GoGuardian is bought by districts to manage student devices, and its products now cover the AI tools students open on their own.
Key features
- GoGuardian Teacher shows student screens during class, manages tabs, and sends Off-Task Alerts when students leave the lesson.
- GoGuardian Admin filters and reports on AI tool use across the district.
- Beacon watches for warning signs in websites, AI tools, and companion bots and notifies the staff your district chooses.
Pricing: Priced by quote for schools and districts. There's no free plan for individual teachers.
Choose it if: you're a district leader who wants visibility into every AI tool students use on school devices, not only the one the district bought.
Skip it if: you're a teacher looking for a tool you can start using this week, since GoGuardian is set up by your district's IT team.
SchoolAI vs. Brisk
SchoolAI is built around student AI activities with district-level safety tools, and Brisk is built around teacher prep and feedback, with Brisk Boost for student activities.
A safety checklist for student-facing AI
Before students use any AI tool, ask the same questions about each one. A FERPA or COPPA badge tells you the company says it follows the law, but it doesn't tell you how the AI behaves with your students.
Your district may already have a list of approved tools, which is the best place to start. A tool that's free for teachers can still need district approval before you use it with students.
Replace all of SchoolAI or just one part?
You may not need a single replacement for everything SchoolAI does, especially if you only use part of it. This table matches each SchoolAI feature to the tools on this list that do a similar job.
These tools also work side by side. For example, you could build a quiz in Brisk from the article you're teaching, run it in Nearpod during the lesson, and close with a Boost Exit Ticket.
Which SchoolAI alternative should you pick?
- You want help with your own prep and feedback first: Brisk, with Brisk Boost when you're ready to try student AI activities.
- Your school uses Google Workspace and you like writing prompts: Gemini in Classroom, where you can build a Gem or notebook for your class.
- You want students to discuss and share ideas safely: Padlet with Safety Net turned on.
- You want every student responding during the lesson: Nearpod, or Pear Deck if you'd like to keep your existing slides.
- You teach with video: Edpuzzle.
- You're choosing for a district and want oversight of all AI use: GoGuardian, alongside whichever classroom tool you approve.
- Choose SchoolAI if: your district already has a Pro or Scale plan, you want crisis alerts sent to administrators, or you want one platform built mainly for student AI activities.
Finding the right fit
Try one tool with a single class before you roll it out more widely, and if you plan to use AI with students, start with the safety checklist and your district's approved list.
If you'd like AI help with your own planning and feedback, and a simple way to try guided student activities, start using Brisk for free and try it for your next lesson.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why choose Brisk over SchoolAI?
Brisk puts teacher prep and student AI activities in one free extension. You can draft a lesson, rubric, or quiz from any article or video, then turn that same material into a Brisk Boost activity that students open with a link or class code and no account. It also comments on the essays students write in Google Docs, so one tool covers planning, practice, and feedback.
Is SchoolAI free?
SchoolAI's free plan is a trial that includes 5 Space launches a year. Unlimited launches, rostering, LMS integration, and alerts routed to administrators are part of the Pro and Scale plans, which are priced by quote.
Is there a free alternative to SchoolAI for students?
Brisk is free for teachers and includes Brisk Boost activities that students join with a link or code. If your school uses Google Workspace for Education, Gemini in Classroom lets you share Gems and NotebookLM notebooks with students at no extra cost once your admin turns them on.
Can students use ChatGPT or Gemini instead of SchoolAI?
It depends on the version and your school's settings. ChatGPT for Teachers is only for educators. Gemini in Classroom and Copilot Chat can be turned on for students by your school's admin, but for now they give teachers less visibility into student chats than SchoolAI's Mission Control or Brisk Boost's dashboard.
Can teachers monitor student chats in Brisk Boost?
Yes. While an activity runs, each student's conversation appears on a live dashboard, and Brisk notifies you when a chat contains profanity, insults, or violence. You also choose the language, grade level, guardrails, and goal for each activity, and you can test it before students join. Brisk Boost comes with Brisk's free plan.
How do SchoolAI alternatives handle student data privacy?
Each company sets its own policies, so check the SchoolAI privacy policy on data handling. The safety checklist above covers what to ask about how a tool handles student chats.