Artificial intelligence and the transformation of inclusive education: accessibility, ethics, and digital equity in Europe

This scoping review examines the development of AI-supported inclusive education in Europe through bibliometric and thematic analyses of literature published between 2000 and 2025. It explores how artificial intelligence contributes to personalised learning, accessibility, assistive technologies and adaptive instructional practices, while identifying the conceptual, ethical and institutional dimensions shaping inclusive educational transformation. Data were collected exclusively from the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus databases and analysed using thematic mapping, keyword co-occurrence networks, thematic evolution, factorial analysis and international collaboration networks. The findings reveal a substantial increase in scientific production after 2019, indicating the rapid institutionalisation of AI-supported inclusive education as an interdisciplinary field. The literature increasingly emphasises human-centred learning, assistive technologies, learning analytics and ethical governance alongside technological innovation. The review conceptualises emerging perspectives of adaptive socio-technical inclusion and ethical adaptive inclusion, highlighting interactions among AI systems, accessibility, pedagogy and social justice. Persistent challenges include algorithmic bias, digital inequality, teacher competencies and institutional readiness, all of which may hinder sustainable and equitable implementation across diverse European educational contexts. Given the database limitations, relevant studies indexed elsewhere may not have been captured. Future inclusive AI frameworks should prioritise ethical governance, pedagogical sustainability, equitable digital access and human-centred educational transformation.