Moderation, mostly. An agent drafts feedback against a rubric, answers student and parent questions, and handles extension requests. You check what it holds, sample what it marked alone, and step in when a message hints at a welfare concern. Every decision is recorded with a reason, and your classroom judgement is the core of the work.
Where do agents show up in education?
Colleges, universities, online course providers and training companies use agents for the administrative and first-pass work around teaching. Common uses are answering questions about deadlines and course rules, drafting feedback on assignments against a published rubric, processing standard extension requests, and following up on missed sessions.
Each of those is a separate capability with its own limits. An agent may answer course-rule questions on its own once certified. It drafts feedback, but a person approves any grade that counts. It may grant a short extension within policy, but anything outside the policy is held.
What does the reviewer decide?
- Feedback and provisional grades: you approve, adjust or send back the agent's draft, starting with borderline and failing work.
- Extension and deferral requests outside policy: you decide, with the reason recorded.
- Messages with any sign of distress or risk: you escalate at once to the designated welfare or safeguarding lead. The agent is refused any role in those conversations by the institution's own limits.
- Complaints about grades or treatment: the agent drafts an acknowledgement; you own the response.
- Moderation samples: you check a set of decisions the agent made on its own, as you would moderate a colleague's marking.
That last task is the one teachers recognise instantly. Moderation exists because consistent marking needs a second look. Agents need the same.
What does a moderation catch look like?
Take a reviewer we will call Rachel at an online college. She samples feedback the agent drafted on a batch of essays. One essay received a low mark and the comment "does not address the question".
Rachel reads the essay and the assignment brief. The brief allowed students to choose one of two questions; the student answered the second. The agent's sources included only the first question, because the second had been added in a later version of the brief. Rachel corrects the mark and the feedback, checks the batch for other students who chose the second question, finds six, and fixes those too. She then asks for the agent's sources to be updated. One student would have appealed; five might not have.
What gets recorded?
Every verdict is filed in an append-only record: the agent's draft, its sources, your decision and your reason. If a student appeals a grade, the institution can show what the agent proposed, what you changed and on what basis.
The record also shows your quality as a reviewer. You are judged on decisions that hold up and red lines not missed, such as a welfare concern left in a routine queue. Speed comes a distant second.
What does a teacher bring to this work?
You mark against criteria every week, and you know the difference between a weak answer and an answer to a different question. You notice when a short email about a deadline is really about something else. You explain decisions to students and parents in plain words, and you moderate others' marking without making it personal.
What you will add is the vocabulary of governed agents: depth, where each fact came from, and why one action is held and another refused. The guide to AI agent jobs and careers sets out the roles. The reviewer job for a former recruiter shows a similar reading skill used on CVs. The steps are in how to move from teacher to AI agent reviewer.
Be honest with yourself about the trade. A reviewer role is not teaching. If what you love is the classroom, this may suit you better as a second string than a replacement.
Where the Academy fits
Pryme Intelligence Academy's free Foundations track takes about four hours and explains why agents must be governed and how depth works. The Operator track then covers human review and teaching the agent, with module tests set in your own industry and role. Lessons can be read or listened to as audio, which helps if you are still teaching full time.
Questions people ask
Do I need to leave education to do this?
No. Education providers use agents too, and someone has to review them. Staying in the sector means your subject and institutional knowledge count directly.
How do I explain a teaching background to a non-education employer?
Translate the duties: assessment against criteria, moderation, safeguarding escalation and explaining decisions. The cover letter template for teachers applying for AI operations jobs shows how.
What comes after reviewer?
Often AI operations analyst work, watching quality across many decisions. The route is in how to become an AI operations analyst as a former teacher.