AI in Education Statistics 2026: Students, Teachers, Rules
95% of UK undergraduates now use AI in some form, and 88% of university students across 35 countries say the same. In US schools, 54% of teens have used a chatbot for schoolwork, and six in 10 teachers used AI for their work in the 2024-25 school year. The guidance has not kept up: just 18% of US teachers have received formal guidance on how to use it. The most quoted time-savings figure, “six weeks a year,” is real but self-reported. Here are the AI in education statistics worth knowing in 2026, each sourced inline with the year noted.
95% of UK undergraduates use AI, and 12% paste its text into assessed work
95% of UK undergraduates use AI in at least one way, and 94% use generative AI to help with assessed work, in HEPI and Kortext’s survey of 1,054 full-time undergraduates (HEPI Student Generative AI Survey, 2026).
12% of students now include AI-generated text directly in assessed work, up from 8% in 2025 and 3% in 2024 (HEPI, 2026).
65% of students say assessment has changed significantly in response to AI (HEPI, 2026).
Only 36% of students feel encouraged by their institution to use AI, and only 38% say they are given AI tools (HEPI, 2026).
88% of university students and 77% of faculty use AI in their learning or teaching, the faculty figure up 16 percentage points on 2025, in the Digital Education Council’s survey of 45,398 students and faculty across 35 countries (EdTech Innovation Hub, 2026).
57% of students say their assessments come with inadequate AI guidance, and only 29% believe their instructors are equipped to guide them on AI (Digital Education Council, 2026). In the US and Canada, faculty intent to use AI in teaching fell from 76% to 67% in a year, the only region where it dropped.
54% of US teens have used a chatbot for schoolwork
54% of US teens ages 13 to 17 have used AI chatbots to get help with schoolwork, and 57% to search for information, in a survey of 1,458 teens and their parents (Pew Research Center, 2026).
One in 10 teens say they do all or most of their schoolwork with a chatbot’s help, 21% do some and 23% a little (Pew Research Center, 2026).
26% of teens used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024, double the 13% in 2023 (Pew Research Center, 2025).
54% of students and 53% of English, math and science teachers said they used AI for school in 2025, more than 15 percentage points higher than one to two years earlier (RAND, 2025).
59% of teens think using AI to cheat happens regularly at their school, rising to 76% among teens who have used chatbots for schoolwork themselves (Pew Research Center, 2026).
Six in 10 teachers use AI, and weekly users say it saves 5.9 hours
Six in 10 US public school teachers used an AI tool for their work in the 2024-25 school year, and 32% used one at least weekly, in a Walton Family Foundation and Gallup survey of 2,232 K-12 teachers (Gallup, 2025).
Preparing to teach is the top use: 37% of teachers used AI for it at least monthly, followed by making worksheets or activities (33%) and modifying materials for student needs (28%) (Gallup, 2025).
Teachers who use AI weekly estimate it saves them 5.9 hours a week, about six weeks over a 37.4-week school year (Gallup, 2025). This is the source of the widely repeated “six weeks a year” figure. It is the teachers’ own estimate, not measured time.
US teachers worked 49 hours a week on average in 2025, 10 hours more than they were contracted to work (RAND State of the American Teacher, 2025).
Only 18% of teachers get formal AI guidance
Just 18% of US K-12 teachers have received any formal guidance from school administrators on how to use AI tools, in a survey of 2,069 public school teachers in February and March 2026 (Gallup, 2026).
Across 10 work tasks, 34% of teachers receive no AI guidance at all, and 48% receive only informal guidance (Gallup, 2026).
69% of teachers have no guidance on using AI for tutoring, and 58% have none for grading and student feedback (Gallup, 2026).
45% of principals reported having school or district AI policies, and 34% of teachers reported policies on AI and academic integrity (RAND, 2025).
Over 80% of students said their teachers did not explicitly teach them how to use AI for schoolwork, and only 35% of district leaders said they train students on AI (RAND, 2025).
Half of students worry they will be falsely accused of using AI to cheat (RAND, 2025).
AI detectors flagged 3% of papers as mostly AI-written
Of more than 200 million student papers Turnitin reviewed in the first year of its AI detector, about 11% had at least 20% AI writing and about 3% had at least 80% (Turnitin, 2024). These are papers, not students, and they are detector estimates rather than confirmed cases.
61% of parents think more AI use will harm students’ critical thinking, against 22% of school district leaders (RAND, 2025). Students sit in between: 48% of middle schoolers and 55% of high schoolers agree.
For AI use outside the classroom, see AI statistics and ChatGPT statistics.
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FAQ
What percentage of students use AI? 95% of UK undergraduates use AI in some form (HEPI, 2026), and 88% of university students across 35 countries use it in their learning (Digital Education Council, 2026). In the US, 54% of teens have used a chatbot for schoolwork (Pew Research Center, 2026).
How many teachers use AI? Six in 10 US public school teachers used AI for their work in the 2024-25 school year, and 32% used it at least weekly (Gallup, 2025).
How much time does AI save teachers? Teachers who use AI weekly estimate it saves 5.9 hours a week, about six weeks over a school year. The figure is self-reported (Gallup, 2025).
Do schools have AI policies? 45% of principals reported having AI policies or guidance in 2025 (RAND, 2025), and only 18% of teachers have received formal guidance on using AI at work (Gallup, 2026).
Related: AI Statistics · ChatGPT Statistics · AI in the Workplace Statistics · AI Replacing Jobs Statistics · Burnout Statistics
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