On paper, Collaborative Online International Learning sounds built for the current moment. Students log in from different countries, work through shared projects, argue gently about ideas, and slowly realise the world looks different depending on where you stand. No flights, no visas. Just time zones, screens, and conversation.
Now artificial intelligence is sliding into that space. Quietly at first. A translation tool here. A writing assistant there. And suddenly a practice that was designed to foreground human difference is being reshaped by systems built to smooth things out.
For many educators running COIL projects, the appeal is obvious. Language has always been one of the biggest friction points. Students who are confident in English tend to dominate discussions. Others hang back, not because they have less to say, but because saying it takes more effort. Real-time translation tools promise to rebalance that. Some teachers already use them to help students follow discussions without constantly apologising for their grammar.
There’s also the administrative side. Anyone who has coordinated a COIL course knows how much time disappears into scheduling meetings across continents, matching students into workable groups, and keeping projects on track. AI tools can take some of that pressure off. In theory, that leaves educators with more time to do what matters: guiding discussions, noticing tensions, helping students reflect on what just happened in a difficult exchange.
On the ground, though, things feel more complicated.
COIL works because it isn’t smooth. A student in Japan hesitates before disagreeing. A partner in Brazil reads that hesitation as uncertainty. Someone laughs at the wrong moment. Someone else takes offence, then explains why. These awkward moments are not bugs. They are the curriculum. They force students to sit with difference rather than glide past it.
There’s a growing worry that AI, used too enthusiastically, might remove exactly that friction. If every message is polished, translated, softened and reframed before it reaches another human, what disappears along the way? Misunderstandings can be frustrating, but they also prompt questions. Why did that land badly? Why does this assumption feel obvious to me but strange to someone else?
Students themselves seem divided. Some appreciate the support. Others say the tools make collaboration feel thinner, less risky, less real. One student described group work that felt like “talking through a buffer”. Everyone was polite. Nobody pushed back. Nothing stuck.
Trust is another quiet concern. When platforms start analysing tone, participation or engagement, students wonder who is watching and why. Are they being assessed by a person, or by something else? And what happens to honesty when people feel monitored?
Educators are caught in the middle. Many see AI as unavoidable. Ignoring it doesn’t stop students from using it anyway. But there’s also a sense that COIL, of all practices, needs clearer boundaries. If the goal is to learn how to work with real people across cultures, then AI has to stay in a supporting role.
Some instructors are experimenting with that balance. They allow AI for translation and logistics, but not for drafting messages or resolving disagreements. They ask students to reflect explicitly on moments when communication broke down. What was lost? What was gained? What did the tool help with, and what did it get in the way of?
The bigger question hangs over all of this. If AI becomes good enough to simulate intercultural dialogue convincingly, will institutions be tempted to replace messy human exchanges with cleaner, cheaper alternatives? A simulated partner never drops out, never misunderstands instructions, never needs emotional support.
But something essential would go missing. COIL was never about efficiency. It was about encountering another person, imperfectly, and learning from the discomfort that follows.
Whether AI strengthens or weakens that experience depends less on the technology itself than on the choices educators make now. The tools are powerful. The temptation to overuse them is real. The challenge is remembering why COIL existed in the first place, and deciding what we are willing to protect as everything else accelerates.
