NEP 2020 and Artificial Intelligence: Transforming Teaching, Learning, and Assessment in Higher Education

India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 articulates an ambitious vision for the comprehensive reform of higher education, foregrounding technology integration, multidisciplinary learning, and learner-centred pedagogy as central pillars. Concurrently, the global proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) across educational domains has prompted serious scholarly and policy-level engagement with its transformative potential and inherent risks. This paper presents a critical analysis of the intersection between NEP 2020 and AI-driven transformation in three core dimensions of higher education: teaching, learning, and assessment. Drawing upon verified policy documents, systematic reviews, and empirical studies published by reputable international bodies and journals between 2016 and 2025, the paper examines how NEP 2020’s policy architecture creates both affordances and constraints for AI adoption. The analysis reveals that while the policy’s emphasis on digital infrastructure, personalised learning, and continuous assessment aligns substantively with global AI-in-education trajectories, significant challenges persist regarding equitable access, faculty preparedness, ethical governance, and assessment integrity. The paper argues that realising NEP 2020’s AI-enabled vision demands a critical, context-sensitive implementation strategy that moves beyond techno-optimism toward principled, evidence-informed integration.