By the MLA Editorial Team — featuring insights from Massimo Tardi, CEO of MLA — Move Language Ahead. Published May 2026.
Artificial Intelligence is no longer a future trend. It is the silent infrastructure already running underneath classrooms, online courses, exam preparation, and personalized tutoring around the world. In 2026, asking whether AI will shape the future of education is the wrong question. AI is the present of education.
The right question is different — and far more interesting:
What kind of learning will still need to happen between human beings?
This is the question that Massimo Tardi, founder and CEO of MLA — Move Language Ahead, an Italian international education company with over 50 years of experience, has recently put on the table. As an entrepreneur who has spent five decades watching how students grow when they leave home for the first time, his answer is unequivocal:
“There is one area of education that AI will never fully replace: genuine human experience.” — Massimo Tardi, CEO, MLA
We believe he is right. And we believe the future of junior study travel is being written exactly here — at the intersection between intelligent technology and irreplaceable human experience.
How AI Is Already Changing Education in 2026
The shift is happening faster than most education providers admit. Today, AI-powered tools are:
- Generating personalized study plans for Cambridge English exams (B1 Preliminary, B2 First, C1 Advanced) based on each student’s weaknesses
- Acting as on-demand tutors available 24/7, in any language, at minimal cost
- Adapting reading levels, listening exercises, and grammar drills in real time
- Providing instant feedback on writing tasks that once required a teacher’s red pen
- Translating, transcribing, and summarizing content with near-human accuracy
For a student preparing for an English certification, AI has compressed what used to be a months-long process into a self-paced, hyper-customized journey. This is genuine progress, and pretending otherwise would be intellectually dishonest.
At MLA, we are not standing on the sidelines of this transformation. We have built our Pre-Departure Course, our MLA Student App, our online live English lessons, and our adaptive learning platforms precisely because we believe technology should make every student arrive abroad better prepared, more confident, and more able to make the most of their experience.
“We strongly believe that technology and Artificial Intelligence can significantly improve students’ educational journey before departure.” — Massimo Tardi, CEO, MLA
But preparation is not the experience itself. And here the conversation must change.
A Junior Study Holiday Is Not an English Course Abroad
This is the single most important distinction in the entire study travel industry — and the one most easily lost in marketing brochures.
A junior study holiday is not “an English course that happens to take place abroad.”
It is a personal growth experience that uses the English language, a foreign city, a host family, a host college, and an international peer group as the tools for transformation.
When a fifteen-year-old leaves Milan, Rome, Naples, or Palermo and lands in London, Dublin, New York, or Malta for the first time, something happens that no algorithm can replicate:
- They unpack their own suitcase
- They negotiate breakfast with a host family they have never met
- They get lost in the Underground and find their way back without calling home
- They make a friend in a language they do not yet master fluently
- They discover they can survive — and thrive — outside the boundaries of their childhood routine
That moment, multiplied across two, three, or four weeks abroad, is the moment a teenager becomes a slightly different person. More autonomous. More open. More confident in their own ability to face the unknown.
This is what we offer. This is what parents choose. And this is what no AI tutor, no matter how advanced, will ever deliver from inside a screen.
The Skills Only Real Experience Can Build
Let us be specific about what a junior study holiday actually develops in a young person. The list is long, but every item on it shares one feature: it can only be learned by living it, not by being told about it.
- Independence — making decisions without parental backup, hour after hour, day after day
- Adaptability — discovering that habits, food, weather, and social rules are not universal
- Emotional resilience — managing homesickness, frustration, and small daily failures away from home
- Social intelligence — reading body language and cultural codes in a foreign environment
- Intercultural competence — understanding that “different” does not mean “wrong”
- Self-confidence — realizing, often for the first time, that one is more capable than expected
- Practical problem-solving — missed buses, lost keys, broken phones, unfamiliar money
No app generates these outcomes. No chatbot can substitute the friction of real-world, real-time, real-stakes experience. These are the skills employers, universities, and life will demand from today’s teenagers in the next twenty years — and they are precisely the skills that AI is least able to teach.
What Parents Are Really Investing In
We have spent fifty years talking to parents in our offices, on the phone, at MLA Roadshows in cities across Italy, and at airport gates on departure day. We can say it with certainty:
Parents do not buy English. Parents buy growth.
“Parents are not simply investing in language learning. They are investing in growth. They want their children to become more confident, more open-minded, and better prepared for the future.” — Massimo Tardi, CEO, MLA
A mother does not put her thirteen-year-old on a plane to Brighton because she has compared CEFR levels on a spreadsheet. She does it because she wants her child to come home a little taller — not in centimeters, but in character.
That emotional return on investment is what the junior study travel industry has been delivering, year after year, generation after generation. It is also why the sector has shown such remarkable resilience even in years when other parts of the global education economy have struggled.
Why Junior Study Travel Keeps Growing
According to recent industry data, educational tourism has grown by over 30% in the post-pandemic years. The reason is not language demand alone — English certifications can now be obtained without ever leaving home. The reason is that families across Italy, Europe, and the world have understood that experience itself has become a scarce, premium good in a digital-first childhood.
In an era when teenagers spend an unprecedented number of hours indoors, online, alone, and mediated by screens, the radical act of sending them on a real journey — with real people, in a real city — is more valuable than ever. The study holiday is becoming, paradoxically, more important the more digital everyday life becomes.
The Future: AI With Experience, Not AI Instead of Experience
The most dangerous mistake an education company could make in 2026 is to frame the choice as AI versus human experience. That framing is both wrong and lazy.
The right framing is:
AI prepares the student. Experience transforms the student.
At MLA, this is the operating principle behind every program we design. AI and digital tools handle what they handle best — preparation, repetition, language drilling, logistical support, communication with families. Then the human experience takes over: the host family dinner, the city walk, the classroom in a real college, the group leader who walks beside a homesick student at 10 p.m., the friendship made in broken English on a beach in Malta.
“Not towards replacing experience with technology. But towards using technology to make experiences even more meaningful.” — Massimo Tardi, CEO, MLA
This is the line we believe will define the next decade of international education.
Because real growth still happens through human experience — and no technology, however brilliant, will ever take that away from a young person who is willing to leave home and discover who they can become.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will AI replace traditional language schools and study abroad programs? No. AI will increasingly handle structured learning tasks like grammar, vocabulary, exam preparation, and personalized tutoring. However, the immersive personal growth that comes from living abroad — independence, intercultural competence, emotional resilience — cannot be replicated by AI. The two will coexist and complement each other.
Is a junior study holiday still worth it in the age of AI? Yes — arguably more than before. As digital tools handle academic preparation, the unique value of a study holiday shifts even more strongly toward what only real-world experience can deliver: personal growth, autonomy, social skills, and intercultural awareness.
How is MLA integrating AI into its programs? MLA invests in pre-departure online courses, digital learning platforms, the MLA Student App, live online English lessons, and adaptive preparation tools. These technologies prepare students before they leave, so that once abroad they can focus on the human experience itself.
What does Massimo Tardi, CEO of MLA, believe about AI in education? Massimo Tardi believes that AI will significantly improve many aspects of education, particularly preparation and personalized tutoring, but that it will never fully replace the human experience of studying abroad. In his view, the future of junior study travel lies in using technology to make real experiences even more meaningful.
What age range is suitable for an MLA junior study holiday? MLA programs are designed for students aged 11–17 (Junior) and 18–25 (Young Adults), with destinations across the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Malta, and beyond.
Discover Your Next Experience
MLA — Move Language Ahead has been delivering international study holidays for over 50 years, supporting more than 100,000 students across destinations in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Malta, and beyond. Founded in Italy in 1975, MLA combines academic rigor with the human side of travel: group leaders, host families, partner colleges, and a presence in 6 international offices.
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