Teacher Readiness‐By‐Design for AI ‐Rich Interactive Learning

ABSTRACT Background Artificial intelligence (AI)‐rich educational technologies are expanding rapidly, yet teacher readiness is still commonly represented through adoption, confidence or competence constructs that do not explain the quality of the learning designs produced. Objective This conceptual article develops readiness‐by‐design as an enactment‐oriented capability: teachers' capacity to mobilise professional resources through design mediation, within an enabling institutional and policy ecology, to create pedagogically aligned, inclusive and ethically defensible AI‐mediated learning. Approach An iterative theory‐building synthesis integrates research on technology acceptance, teacher digital competence, AI literacy, TPACK, teacher design capacity and agency, responsible AI, institutional support and instructional design. The literature‐identification and construct‐integration logic is made explicit, and recent empirical studies from 2024 to 2026 are used to interrogate the framework. Contribution and Conclusions The framework is distinctive because it specifies design mediation as the mechanism linking teacher resources to observable instructional design quality, positions policy clarity and institutional support as moderating conditions, incorporates feedback from enacted designs and treats K‐12 and higher education as boundary conditions. Six directional propositions, candidate indicators and a design‐based professional‐learning model provide a basis for empirical validation.