Integrating AI in chemical education: Navigating UNESCO global guidelines, emerging trends, and its intersection with sustainable development goals

As the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) is expanding in the educational field, presenting significant implications for STEM disciplines, it is bringing opportunities to enhance how chemistry and chemical engineering are taught and learned. This perspective critically explores the integration of AI in education, drawing from UNESCO guidelines and global recommendations from 2022 to 2025, underscoring the importance of critically assessing all AI generated content. The analysis highlights the transformative impact of AI on educational practices, focusing on its potential to enhance personalized learning, teacher training, and academic management in chemistry and chemical engineering education, all of which are seen as potentially contributing to advancing sustainable development goal 4 (SDG 4, quality education). However, the rapid development of AI technologies has outpaced policy debates, leading to the need for global and regional frameworks to guide the responsible integration of AI, ensuring equitable and human-centered educational advancements, where prioritizing human-centered approaches is crucial. Approximately 47% of academic institutions in high-income countries have implemented AI-driven tools by 2023, whereas only 8% have implemented AI-driven tools in low-income countries. Furthermore, the adoption of AI tools in classrooms is projected to grow as AI technology implementation increases, with significant regional disparities that emphasize the need for targeted interventions. This perspective argues that to harness the potential benefits of AI on education, there is a pressing need for targeted investments in digital infrastructure, particularly in low-income regions. It also identifies future research directions and policy implications necessary for harmonizing AI application and evaluation in STEM education, with a specific focus on chemistry and chemical engineering. We conclude that the responsible integration of AI requires the chemical education community to explore beyond the immediate advantages or limitations. The high-level ethical frameworks proposed by UNESCO could help develop pedagogical and assessment strategies to address these challenges.