Under the background of the two-way empowerment of artificial intelligence (AI) and education development, this paper first sorts out the demands for high-quality development of education in China in the new era from the perspectives of educational equity, talent cultivation, and contradiction resolution. Then, it focuses on the vision of AI empowering the high-quality development of education, and points out that AI is spawning new patterns and characteristics from the aspects of students’ learning, teachers’ development, school construction, home-school cooperation, educational governance, educational evaluation, educational equity, etc., which has provided important driving force for the high-quality development of education. Finally, the paper proposes the paths of AI empowering high-quality development of education from the aspects of top-level design, educational reform, construction of intelligent education environment, improvement of intelligence education literacy, cultivation of innovative talent, construction of high-quality education resources, response to ethical risks, etc., to clarify the future direction for the deep integration and development of AI and education.