By: Kenzy Hesham
School is officially back in session. With it, one memory resurfaces, etched in our brains no matter how long ago we left school: sitting at the dining room table with your mom or dad glaring at you as they try to explain a new math concept. But what if that reality is about to change?
What if students can log on to their computer and be greeted by an avatar that looks identical to their teacher? The avatar would help them understand the material at their own pace and answer any questions. If you might be thinking that this is the plotline for a new Black Mirror episode, well, you are wrong. This is the purpose behind Napster’s new partnership with GEMS Education in Dubai.
What Exactly Are They Building?
Beginning with GEMS School of Research and Innovation, the partnership will develop projects including digitalization of instructors, gamified learning, AI-assisted content creation, and classroom simulations.
Essentially, all the teacher’s material will be uploaded to the digital avatar, so that the avatar is familiar with the content. The avatar would then be available to answer students’ questions 24/7 and in different languages.
It will also track the areas where a student is struggling and communicate that information back to the real teacher. As for when it will be ready for use, the project is expected to launch before the end of 2026.
What Are the Concerns Surrounding the Project?
The announcement has also raised concerns about the accuracy and reliability of AI avatars, the possibility of teachers losing their jobs, and the privacy of both teachers and students.
The Risk of Hallucinations
AI is known to produce hallucinations, which is information that seems plausible but is actually inaccurate or misleading. The AI might give students an incorrect explanation or answer, which would cause further confusion. This can happen for many reasons, such as the system not understanding the question or prompt.
To address this, Napster has explained that the avatars will be trained on teachers’ materials, courses, and papers. Educators, students, and partners will also be able to codesign, test, and evaluate the AI agents through the Gems Global Education AI Hub and Gems Intelligence 360 platform.
Are Teachers’ Jobs at Risk?
Other concerns come from teachers themselves, with some questioning whether AI could eventually put their jobs at risk.
Trying to reassure them that this isn’t the goal, Samuel Huber, CEO of MENA for Napster, said, “We’re not at the point yet where AI can fully replace humans, and therefore we want to leverage that technology overlaid on top of humans to get the most of it. What we’re building here is not about replacing the course, the lesson, the primary interaction between teachers and students that still happens in the real world.”
Other teachers do agree with Huber that they provide an essential component that AI can never duplicate: human connection. Thomas Toch, the director of FutureEd, which is an education policy center at Georgetown University, explained:
“The loss of that connection during the pandemic, when kids were learning virtually, created widespread mental-health challenges. The notion that, you know, a machine will be the only entity that interacts with kids is problematic in that regard.”
Transparency Needed On Privacy Concerns
Even if teachers’ jobs are safe for now, there is still another threat to their privacy. Creating a digital clone requires large amounts of sensitive personal data such as images, videos, and audio clips. For this reason, teachers should be made aware of these risks and, where applicable, have control over how their digital clones are created and used.
Digital clones can also be misused for fraud or impersonation, making strong data security important at every stage of creating, maintaining, and using them.
It remains to be seen what guardrails and protections Napster will offer teachers. For now, the company has said that user data will not be used to train its AI models. Student data will also remain within the country and, where required, can be hosted on a company’s own servers.
To achieve this, Napster has partnered with G42, an Emirati artificial intelligence development holding company, to host its data and run AI models locally.
Expanding Beyond the UAE
Napster and GEMS Education don’t only have their sights set on the UAE. Their goal is deployment across GEMS schools in the Middle East and beyond. With around 60 schools in the Middle East, these avatars might be coming to your area sooner than you think.
Other Initiatives Around the World
Napster isn’t the first to create digital avatars for teachers. At George Mason University in the USA, faculty members including Farrokh Alemi, professor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy, and health informatics expert Sanja Avramovic developed digital clones of themselves to help deliver lectures and tutor students.
A similar program was conducted at Imperial College London. In 2024, the IDEA Lab, in collaboration with Professor David Shrier, created an AI avatar named Davatar. Following the project’s success, they piloted three more avatars, MarkBot, OmarBot, and BartBot, in 2025.
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