If it feels like things are shifting in school marketing lately, you’re not imagining it.
There’s a quiet transformation happening in how families discover and compare schools, and AI sits at the centre of it. Not in a “robots are taking over” way (yet!), but in smaller, more practical shifts that are already starting to affect how parents search, what they expect, and how they make decisions.
For international schools, this opens up a real opportunity, not to reinvent everything, but to rethink how we show up. And to connect with the right families in a smarter, more human way.
Let’s explore what’s changing, and how schools can start to lean into it.
We used to think about search in terms of SEO and keywords. If you wanted to show up online, you focused on ranking for terms like “best international school in Singapore.” That made sense when most people were typing short, generic queries into search engines.
But that’s not how discovery works anymore.
Thanks to generative AI, parents can now ask specific, layered questions and expect a helpful, conversational answer. They might ask: “Which schools in KL follow the British curriculum, support additional learning needs and have a close-knit international community?”
Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini don’t simply respond with a list of things, but they synthesise what they’ve learned from countless conversations and articles, and prioritise overall helpfulness over keyword density. So if your school is only visible through traditional SEO tricks, it might be missed by the increasing number of parents who use LLMs in their search.
This doesn’t mean content stops mattering, but thatit needs to reflect how real families think and speak.
When websites and databases were the only game in town, school marketing was about building visibility, casting a wide net and hoping the right families found you. That’s still important, but it’s no longer enough.
AI tools are shifting the discovery process from broad to precise. They help families filter for what really matters to them, like values, curriculum, fee level, or pastoral support. Schools that clearly communicate these aspects — in ways that are easy for AI models to pick up — are more likely to show up in answers when it matters most.
That means the old “spray and pray” approach, where you try to be visible everywhere, is losing impact. What matters now is being clear, honest, and helpful in the places where parents are already asking questions.
One of the most interesting things about this new wave of AI tools is how well they handle creative tasks. AI now writes code (hello, Claude!), generating real-time graphics and even simulating entire virtual worlds. These tools are already helping people build, create and test faster than ever before.
This creativity opens doors for school marketers too. From writing tailored copy for different audiences, to testing new messaging, to speeding up localisation work, AI can reduce the grunt work and free up time for bigger-picture thinking.
That said, it’s not perfect. If you’ve used ChatGPT before, you know LLMs still get things wrong: it can misread tone, or miss nuance. AI hallucinates surprisingly frequently, which is why human judgment still matters. The most effective approach is blending AI’s speed and reach with your team’s understanding of your school’s voice, values and personality (and some common sense!).
However you feel about AI, it’s here, and it’s here to stay. But its impact won’t be sudden or dramatic as some of the conversations online would have you believe. It’s more likely to unfold the way the internet did: slowly at first, then all at once.
Right now, we’re at the early stage. Think of it like the moment before the first proper web browsers took off. It’s clunky in places and inconsistent in others, but the direction of travel is clear.
And here’s the exciting bit: schools that start adapting now have a real edge not by adopting every new tool, but by rethinking discovery in three simple ways:
We don’t need to predict the future to see that discovery is changing. Families want answers a lot more than ads. And schools that respond to this shift with warmth, clarity and openness will be the ones who thrive.
If you’re curious about what this could look like for your school, or if you want to understand how parents are discovering you today, doris can help.