When AI agents book doctors and teach physics, schools should pay attention

The room at Le Mridien, New Delhi, was full, attentive, and regaining their curiousity after lunch when Professor Kamal Bijlani stepped up to speak at the India Today Education Conclave. He didn’t begin with code, jargon, or a warning about machines taking over jobs. Instead, he began with James Bond.

“You’ve heard about secret agents,” he said, smiling. “Today, we’ll talk about secrets about AI agents.”

Within minutes, the audience realised this wasn’t another abstract AI talk. What followed was a grounded, practical, and India-specific demonstrations of artificial intelligence.

AN AI AGENT THAT SPEAKS LIKE US

Before diving into theory, Bijlani, Dean of the School of Artificial Intelligence at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, chose to show, not tell. On his phone, he demonstrated an AI voice agent designed to book a doctor’s appointment.

The interaction happened entirely in Hindi. The agent asked about symptoms, identified that the issue was dermatological, recommended a suitable specialist, confirmed the hospital, fixed a date and time, and collected the patient’s name and phone number. The entire process took about a minute.

There were no forms, no apps to download, and no hospital visit just to ask a question.

Behind the scenes, the agent had already done something remarkable. It had listened, understood, reasoned, recommended, acted, and confirmed. It also pushed the information to the hospital’s administrative system and even sent a WhatsApp confirmation.

“This is triaging,” Bijlani explained. “The agent figures out whether you need a doctor, which doctor, and completes the task end-to-end.”

WHY THIS MATTERS IN INDIA

The room grew quieter as Bijlani shifted the focus from healthcare to education, and the numbers started to show why AI agents can level up how we operate in the education space.

India has over 20 crore students. Counsellor ratios recommended under the National Education Policy stand at 1:500, but in reality, they are far worse. Admissions are confusing, scholarships go unused, and two-thirds of eligible students never apply simply because they do not know they qualify.

Parents often cannot guide children through new-age careers. Counselling access is limited, and doubts remain unresolved for months. Add to this India’s linguistic diversity -- 22 official languages and thousands of dialects -- and the scale of the challenge becomes obvious.

“So what does an AI agent do? It can work 24 x 7, it handles volume, it's personalised to me, it's multilingual, it's low cost, and it completes the job, right?” the professor said.

Basically, not everything needs a human to answer the same question again and again. This is where AI agents step in. It’s not necessarily a replacement for human employees but rather, scalable support systems that can effectively service a large population like India’s.

WHAT MAKES AI AGENTS DIFFERENT

Unlike basic chatbots, these AI agents are always on, multilingual, personalised, and context-aware. They remember who you are. They remember why you came last time. They continue the conversation instead of restarting it.

Bijlani shared that Amrita University has already built mental health AI agents that remember previous conversations -- like a student reporting bullying -- and begin the next interaction by asking how that issue has progressed.

“Somebody remembering your problems, and then just telling you about it itself makes us feel so good as humans emotionally,” he said.

It’s a small detail, but one that drew nods across the room.

FROM COUNSELLING TO CLASSROOMS

The applications in education are expansive. AI agents can guide admissions, explain scholarship eligibility, book tutors, answer parent queries, and provide exam support. They can detect learning weaknesses, generate targeted questions, and personalise practice.

Bijlani demonstrated a second AI agent -- a physics tutor -- again in Hindi. The agent explained Ohm’s Law patiently, using real-life examples like batteries and bulbs, adjusting tone and depth as the student asked follow-up questions.

What stood out wasn’t just accuracy, but comfort.

“In my childhood, when we had a teacher or a professor, we were so scared of them. I could never be so open and friendly with them,” he said.

But here, students don’t need to be scared. They can joke with the AI agent or even ask the same question ten times.

That freedom to ask without judgement, he suggested, could quietly change how students engage with learning.

BUILT BY STUDENTS, READY TODAY

Perhaps the most striking moment came when Bijlani revealed how long such an agent takes to build.

About an hour.

Using existing commercial tools, students at Amrita -- across BTech, MTech, and PhD programmes -- are already building and deploying AI agents. Indian platforms like aiawaaz.io and bolna.ai are mature enough for immediate use, alongside global tools that work seamlessly in India.

This technology is not five years away; it’s already here.

AI PLUS TEACHERS, NOT AI INSTEAD OF TEACHERS

Despite the excitement, the message remained grounded. AI agents, Bijlani emphasised, are for support roles. Human educators remain central for guiding, mentoring, and shaping thinking.

AI can scale access. But teachers scale impact.

The approach, the professor noted, aligns closely with NEP 2020’s emphasis on inclusion, multilingual learning, technology-enabled access, and holistic education.

THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION

There were no dramatic claims about robots replacing classrooms. No fear-driven predictions. Instead, the session ended with something more powerful: a calm sense that the future of Indian education may not arrive with noise, but with a phone ringing in a village, and someone answering in a familiar language.

AI agents, as Bijlani framed them, are not stars of the system. They are its silent helpers.

And judging by the applause that followed, the audience knew they had just seen something that will not remain a demo for long.