Matteo Zaralli works at the intersection of education, AI, and entrepreneurship. He is a lecturer at the European School of Economics in Rome, where he teaches topics such as AI in business, while also building start-ups focused on learning innovation. He is the founder of VRAINERS, a virtual reality learning platform, the VR-AI Academy, and VoxcoachAI, a platform designed to help you practice speaking and receive real-time AI feedback on your voice, clarity and delivery for presentations, public speaking and pitches.
In 2022, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and joined the BEST Programme in Silicon Valley, working within the StartX community at Stanford. He is the author of two books published by Routledge (Taylor and Francis): Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence: Risks and Opportunities for Your Business (2024), and The Evolution of Professional Training: How Artificial Intelligence Technologies Can Accelerate Learning (2025).
His path into this field started early, during a year abroad in high school. That experience pushed him to question his assumptions and shaped his way of thinking. Since then, he has combined business, philosophy, and technology, driven by a simple idea: learning should go beyond theory and become practical, immersive, and personal.
In this conversation, Matteo reflects on how AI is changing education, from the rise of active learning to the growing role of simulation and real-time feedback. At the same time, he keeps coming back to one core question students should ask themselves: are you still learning, or just delegating?
His message is clear. Technology will keep evolving fast, but success still comes down to habits, curiosity, and the ability to adapt.
Stepping outside your world: how studying abroad reshapes your thinking
Studyportals: You’ve recently attended the World Education Summit in Dubai. How did that go?
Matteo Zaralli: Yes, I just came back. As you can imagine, there were a lot of companies from all over the world presenting different solutions for the higher education industry. And, as you can imagine, there was one huge topic: AI. I feel like it’s quite clear the direction the market is taking right now.
Studyportals: You yourself are active in an area that blends education and AI, and you wrote a book on how AI influences the way we learn and develop. How did you get into this field?
Matteo Zaralli:It’s a mix of all the experiences I had before. It started during my high school years, when I attended a programme called Intercultura and spent one full year abroad.
That experience really opened my mind. It helped me understand the world beyond my home, my city, and my country. When you live in just one place, you don’t always see what’s happening outside. Going abroad is an amazing experience, not only for understanding what is outside your home, but also what is inside you.
It challenges your values, your beliefs, the way you grow up and develop. You start questioning everything, and you realise how big the world is.
That curiosity never left me. I went on to study philosophy, which might seem like an unusual path for someone who ended up in AI and technology, but for me it was essential. Philosophy taught me to ask the right questions: not just what we are building, but why, and for whom. And one of the questions I kept coming back to was: why is access to quality learning still so unequal? Why do so many people never get the chance to develop their potential, simply because of where they were born or what they could afford?
The real turning point came when I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and spent time in California. Being in that environment, surrounded by people who were genuinely trying to reshape the future, made me realise that technology, if used thoughtfully, could be one of the most powerful tools we have for democratising education. That's when I started exploring VR seriously. Not as a gadget, but as a medium. A way to create experiences that are immersive, emotionally engaging, and accessible in ways that traditional formats simply cannot be.
So Vrainers, VoxCoach, the books — they are all, in a sense, extensions of that same question I started asking as a teenager living abroad: how do we help people grow into the best version of themselves, regardless of where they start?
Going abroad is an amazing experience. It challenges your values, your beliefs, the way you grow up and develop. You start questioning everything, and you realise how big the world is. There is so much to learn, so much to discover, and so many people to meet.
Studyportals: If you think about one thing that changed inside you after studying abroad, what was it?
Matteo Zaralli: When you live abroad, your mind starts to think in different structures, shaped by the grammar and vocabulary of a new language. That process builds skills you might not develop otherwise.
For me, it was about flexibility and learning to adapt to different situations. When you go abroad, instead of only looking for the things you already like, you start trying new things. That openness and flexibility are what changed the most.
How failure is the first step to success
Studyportals: I see behind you a set of diplomas, and one of them is Fulbright. How did that happen?
Matteo Zaralli: Yes. It was in 2022, but actually I won the scholarship in 2020. Because of COVID, everything was blocked for about a year and a half. The beginning was quite hard because I tried three times. I failed two times, and the third year I finally won the scholarship. I spent about eight months there. I joined an acceleration programme in San Francisco at Mind the Bridge, and then I moved to Palo Alto to StartX, which is a Stanford-affiliated start-up programme, an entrepreneurial community.
What I learned there was the energy people put into trying to build something that can bring value to the market and to people, and also express their creativity.
Another interesting part was the mindset. People do not care how many times they fail. The most important thing is that you try again. There was a quote I heard a lot: “Build fast, fail fast, try again fast.” Even if you fail the first time, the important thing is to learn from the experience, rebuild yourself quickly, and try again.
The most important thing is that you try again. There was a quote I heard a lot: “Build fast, fail fast, try again fast.” Even if you fail the first time, the important thing is to learn from the experience, rebuild yourself quickly, and try again.
Studyportals: Many students, and parents, dream of getting into the best universities and earning that scholarship that thousands of others compete for. But that path is hard. Can you give any practical advice on what you have to do to be among the best?
Matteo Zarralli: There is no secret sauce to success. I would say first you need the discipline to build habits that take you there. Simple things, like listening to podcasts in your field, reading books on what you aim to do. Overall, try to learn as much as possible. But it’s not once a week, it’s every day, right?
There is no secret sauce to success. I would say first you need the discipline to build habits that take you there.
I love start-ups and innovation, so I was reading everything I could about that environment, all the books I could get my hands on. I spend part of every day reading and researching, trying to understand new things and what people in other countries are doing in the same field.
Another practical piece of advice is to talk to people who already got the results you want. That’s what I did. Even with the Fulbright, I contacted people on LinkedIn, scholars who had already won it, and asked for a 20-minute call, even 10 minutes. Some answered, some didn’t, but I kept trying.
Studyportals: You come from the world of business management. What drew you to the tech field, to AI and Education?
Matteo Zaralli: My first job was in a training company and we were working on learning tools. I was also studying at the university and I was looking for some innovative stuff about how to improve learning methods.
I understood that technology can create simulated experiences, emotional engagement, and is excellent for active learning.
The technology has evolved enormously in recent years, to the point where you can now simulate complex scenarios with a level of realism that was simply not possible before. These technologies allow you to simulate complex scenarios, train practical skills, get immediate feedback, and learn through experience, not just observation.
Take public speaking as an example. Usually, you practise in front of a mirror or with people close to you. But you don’t get objective feedback. They might tell you it’s good, but they are not experts.
And this is exactly the problem we decided to solve with VoxCoach. It's an AI-powered tool that listens to you, analyses your delivery — your pace, your tone, your clarity — and gives you precise, actionable feedback in real time. No judgement, no social pressure. Just honest data and concrete suggestions to help you improve. That's the kind of learning experience I wanted to build: something that meets you where you are and helps you grow.
How AI is reshaping the way you learn
Studyportals: When you teach in class, how do you use these tools with your students?
Matteo Zaralli: There is one important question every student should ask: am I still learning if I’m using AI? If the answer is yes, great, you’re learning something. Otherwise, no. Delegating is fine, but you still need to learn.
When you use AI, it generates an output, but it depends on the input you give: the prompt. That’s very important to understand. You need to learn how to ask the right questions. That’s an important skill, and not everyone knows how to do it yet.
Studyportals: With AI now widely used by students, where is the red line not to be crossed? What changes for both students and professors?
Matteo Zaralli: It’s a hot topic right now. Transparency is required when you use AI. Second, AI created a double advantage, for both students and professors. For professors, it means they need to know their students better, talk to them, understand their background, their abilities. We are not just teachers delivering information anymore. We have to become leaders for our students, guiding them through these tools and helping them more than before.
We are not just teachers delivering information anymore. We have to become leaders for our students, guiding them through these tools and helping them more than before.
On the student side, it comes back to one key question: are you still learning when you use these tools? Ask yourself why you are taking a university degree. If you are not learning anything, it doesn’t make sense (pursuing this degree).
One of the biggest strengths of AI today is simulation. You can simulate presentations, exams, even written assignments to prepare better for real ones.
Studyportals: How did your university, or the Italian higher education system, change in recent years?
Matteo Zaralli: At the moment, I’m at the European School of Economics in Rome. I’m also a former student there, I did my Bachelor’s in Business Administration and a Master of Science in Management.
What I love about this university is its approach. It focuses on your inner world, on self-development, not just technical skills. That’s probably where part of my mindset comes from, from what I learned there.
What we are doing now, also at the university, is introducing new subjects like AI in business. It’s one of the courses I’m currently teaching. I try to introduce students to these tools and show them how to use AI properly.
When I’m in class, especially with first-year students, they always ask the same thing: how should we use these tools? Can we use them? And the answer is yes, of course, but it depends on how you use them and whether you are actually learning from them.
We are trying to bring students closer to these new technologies, especially AI. The university itself is a mix of UK and US approaches, so it’s a bit different from a traditional Italian university.
Studyportals: In this complicated world, how do students make decisions about their future, especially when many of the things you do today are not learned in school?
Matteo Zaralli: We don’t know what is going to happen in the next three years because technology is moving so fast. It is going to completely change the world of work. One important skill is flexibility, being able to adapt to what is happening right now.
This means studying every day, because every day something new appears. New platforms, new tools, updates even on well-known platforms like GPT. If I’m a student, I have to keep learning and stay updated with what is happening in my field, how these tools work, and how to use them.
It’s not only about studying for grades. You should also build your portfolio during your university years. Today, there is a speed of creating things that didn’t exist before. You can build projects, platforms, even websites much faster. Before, you needed several people to do that. Now, you can do a lot just by using prompts in plain English.
It’s not only about studying for grades. You should also build your portfolio during your university years. Today, there is a speed of creating things that didn’t exist before. You can build projects, platforms, even websites much faster.
This is powerful. It makes it much easier for a student with an idea to go home and actually build something.
So don’t think about choosing a job that will last 20 years. That’s not how things work anymore. Focus on being flexible, learning continuously, and understanding how to use these tools to create your own projects and accelerate your learning.
Studyportals: In this context, what would your bet be on which jobs or degrees might disappear in the next 10 years?
Matteo Zaralli: If you listen to CEOs of big companies like Anthropic or OpenAI, they are already saying that maybe we won’t need to code in the future.
So I think we should focus on human skills first. Not necessarily things AI cannot replicate at all, but we need to understand what machines are good at, what we are good at, and how the two connect. In the future, I see a strong human–AI collaboration.
Skills like emotional intelligence and strategic communication will become very important. For example, you can already delegate a lot of tasks to AI, like writing. That’s fine. But one thing you cannot really delegate is communication with other people, especially when you talk about yourself or your project.
That’s a skill you need to develop step by step. You can’t just delegate it. You can use tools to practise, get feedback, and improve, but you still have to do the work.
Another interesting perspective comes from my time in Palo Alto. I had a conversation with an entrepreneur about the next 10 years, and he asked, what field AI won’t be able to replace, in my opinion. My first thought was data science, because everything is based on data and we’ll need people to manage that. But his answer was philosophy. I was like, really? And he said yes, critical thinking, human skills, human interaction. I mean, I found it a very interesting answer.
Choosing your path in a fast-changing world
Studyportals: As an AI expert and entrepreneur, would you recommend a student to pursue a Bachelor’s in Philosophy in 2026?
Matteo Zaralli: Well, I did it. I studied business administration and philosophy, and then I took some courses in computer science, deep learning, and machine learning, just to understand the field.
What I recommend today is to be flexible and transversal. Don’t just focus on one subject. You should have a main field, whether it’s business administration, economics, law, or medicine, but also go outside that field. Study things like philosophy or computer science.
If you have the chance to attend workshops in philosophy, psychology, or other human-focused subjects, I totally recommend it. The more we learn about AI, the more we realise we don’t fully understand our own brain and how it works.
So try to understand not just your field, but also how the brain works, what we can do, and the difference between human and artificial intelligence. Look into different types of thinking, learning, and intelligence. These are the subjects that matter most today.
If you go to the gym to build your muscles, then philosophy is the same for your brain. It’s like a gym for your mind.
