Are Your Students Using AI?
A Letter to Educators • 7 minute read
Dear Educators,
What can we say about all this AI business? It sure feels like a whirlwind, doesn’t it?
Take ChatGPT. In its first five days after launching, ChatGPT reached a million users. Within two months, it reached a hundred million. And as of last February, they were up to four-hundred million. Yes, that’s weekly users.1
It’s hard to make sense of.
And how many of those ChatGPT users are our students, you might rightly ask.
Well, last October, during an OpenAI forum in New York City, an answer emerged from one of their senior leaders. And perhaps this won’t surprise you? But as reported by education writer Mark Watkins, it was revealed that “the majority of the active weekly users of ChatGPT are students.”
That’s a lot of students. Over 200 million?
And perhaps this holds true for other frontier models like Gemini and Claude: over half of generative AI users may be students? It’s sure hard to know.2
A Quick Poll
With all this in mind, let’s do a quick show-of-hands — or the online equivalent: a digital poll.
What percent of your students use AI?
On Teens & AI
With teens in particular, perhaps it’s impossible to get a clear sense of how many use AI - but it doesn’t keep us from trying.
As noted by a Pew Research Center 2024 study, the use of ChatGPT for schoolwork has doubled among teens age 13 to 17 — to 25%. And more specifically, as noted by K-12 Dive, 31% of juniors and seniors use ChatGPT, and 20% of seventh-graders and eighth-graders do as well.3
This figure may seem a bit high, especially when remembering what EdSurge reported about ChatGPT’s age requirements. According to ChatGPT’s rules, teens older than 13 but under 18 need a parent or guardian’s permission.4
But teens find a way, don’t they?
And if we look beyond just ChatGPT and its use for schoolwork, we find much greater AI use among teens. 70% of teens use some kind of generative AI bot — with 60% using AI for personal use, and 36% for schoolwork — as reflected in a study by the Center for Democracy & Technology,
This 70% figure is consistent with the 2024 Common Sense Media report. And what interests me most is not the percent. It’s what’s trending for teens with how they use AI. We should learn from them. Half of teens use AI for homework help. Two in five use it for translation help. Two in five use it for assignments. And here’s my favorite statistic: two-fifths use AI to “stave off boredom.”5
And do their parents know?
According to Common Sense, about two-thirds of parents of teens that use AI do not know. Furthermore, over half of the parents surveyed have never talked with their kids about AI. This rings true in Tucson. When I’ve done workshops here with K-12 parents, it’s always more than half the room who have not yet broached the subject.
No surprise.
But perhaps more importantly, 83% of parents in the Common Sense study reported that their K-12 schools have never communicated with them about AI.
But of course.
When six in 10 teens in that same study also report that their schools have never issued any AI guidance to them, we’ve got a real problem.
Either we don’t know how to approach K-12 AI policy — or we don’t know how to communicate it yet.
On AI in Colleges
So what about generative AI use in higher education — for better or worse?
Personally, I like to begin with the AI usage gaps between students and faculty. Looking back to the Fall of 2023, this usage gap came to my attention through the Time for Class study by Tyton Partners. As Inside Higher Education noted about their report, over twice as many college students were using AI as faculty. And though instructors’ and administrators’ AI use has since grown to 40%, as noted in their Fall 2024 report, we’ve also learned that student AI use has as well — to nearly 60%.6
Similar data has emerged in a national study of 337 college leaders through AAC&U and Elon University. In that study, most college leaders reported a parallel gap around perceived student and faculty AI use.7 Likewise, the 2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study suggests that students are either using AI more — or “a lot more” than faculty.8
So where do all these roads lead? What are all these reports telling us?
They tell us that college students continue to use AI more than faculty. And even if the gap differs at some schools, their use is growing. At one college I spoke with twice last year, faculty perceptions of students’ AI use leapt in just eight months from non-use to over half of students using generative AI.
Revisiting the numbers, some studies suggest that student AI use is much higher. A global study shared at Campus Technology reports that 86% of college students say they use AI in their studies.9
Yes, eighty six percent.
And how often do they use AI, you might ask?
Well, 54% use it weekly and 24% use it daily, according to this same poll by the Digital Education Council.
But as with teens, what interests me most is how college students are using AI to support their learning. Anthropic’s latest report on how college students use Claude AI gives us a window. And I should note that I first learned about this through one of Beth McMurtrie’s helpful letters to educators at the Chronicle of Higher Education.
As I read her letters, two things struck me. First, as McMurtrie noted, Anthropic decided to release their report alongside the launch of Claude for Education and its new “learning mode.”10
But second, she shared the survey data which noted that 39% of college students use AI to “create and improve educational content.” In other words, students are using AI to address what we … perhaps … aren’t addressing. They use AI to address those learning needs that we’ve either overlooked, or we’ve been unable to meet.
Across all of this data, the most persisting question for me is this: what does it mean when students are more familiar with AI than … those who make the rules about it?
On Surreptitious AI Use in Schools
To make this even spicier, let’s bring in another edgy question. What percent of your students would still use AI, even if it was banned by their teacher or their school?
Please take a moment to vote:
At the K-12 level, among students that use AI on assignments, 46% do so without their teachers’ permission — as noted in the Common Sense Media study.
And at the college level, it’s up from half to three-fourths, according the Tyton Partners’ studies.11
No matter if it’s K-12 or college, our students who use AI will continue to use AI — even if it’s banned.
And what does this mean for how we approach AI use in our classrooms?
Stepping Toward What’s Next
End of the day, we educators are incredibly adaptive and resilient.
Perhaps we are the most remarkably adaptive, most flexible, and most responsive people in the world? I am biased, I know.
But we make it happen for our students. We help each of our students prepare for their futures. We strive to make sure that they are informed and empowered — so that they can advocate for whatever comes next. In this way, I dare say we’re the world’s most important profession.
But considering the privileged responsibility that all of us carry, I want to leave you with two questions to chew on:
First, what might it take for this generation of students to be practiced enough, and informed enough about what’s next with AI, that they will be able to guide our AI future forward — guardrails and all?
And second, can you create more of a space in your classroom to help your students learn how to use AI — safely, ethically and transparently — so that they can be prepared for the AI that will be part of their college and career pathways?
I realize that these are very sticky questions — especially for those who don’t want to use AI.
Whomever you are, I hope these questions make one thing clear about our own personal use of AI: if we aim to make effective, informed decisions about students’ AI use, at the very least, we need to make time to play with generative AI — routinely and expansively.
If you aren’t already doing so, I hope you’ll give it a try. And I hope you will also hold onto your critiques and concerns about AI as you dive in. We need those too.
Last but not least, if this data share was helpful, please like (♥) my post or click “Leave a Comment,” and share what’s on your mind as you read this.
Stay tuned and warm regards,
Reed
Read more Letters to Educators at Curious Tendril. Stay Curious! And if you want a deeper dive into the statistics, please see my footnotes below.
For the introductory image, I used the prompt “Wizard of Oz Whirlwind with Computers Swirling.” This was back in September 11, 2023 when Microsoft Copilot went by the name Bing. Within that tool, Bing used Dall-E to generate the image.
If you want to revisit the whirlwind of recent generative AI history, start with Greg Brockman’s tweet on the first 5 days (December 5, 2022). Then read ChatGPT reaches 100 million users two months after launch by Dan Milmo at The Guardian (February 2, 2023); as well as OpenAI's weekly active users surpass 400 million by Reuters (February 20, 2025).
Regarding student AI chatbot usage, see Recapping OpenAI's Education Forum by Mark Watkins at Rhetorica via Substack (October 14, 2024). See also ChatGPT is used by 1 in 3 college students—but variability across states is cause for concern, say OpenAI by Preston Fore at Fortune (February 20, 2025) or the parallel article by OpenAI, College students and ChatGPT adoption in the US which includes a state by state adoption map, or view their full report, Building an AI-Ready Workforce: A Look at College Student ChatGPT Adoption in the US.
As most providers of AI chatbots have angled toward student consumers, see what other providers are saying: Introducing Claude for Education (April 2, 2025) or Anthropic Education Report: How University Students Use Claude (April 8, 2024); Advancing education with AI at Google for Education or Learning & Education at Google’s The Keyword blog. See also Bringing Perplexity to education and not-for-profits (Jun 27, 2024).
See Double the teens using ChatGPT for schoolwork by Briana Mendez-Padilla at K12 Dive (February 10, 2025) which cites the 2024 Pew Research Center Teens Survey (September 18 to October 10, 2024).
See Teens Need Parent Permission to Use ChatGPT. Could That Slow Its Use in Schools? by Jeffrey R. Young (November 2, 2023). Regarding Google’s shifting age-limit policies, see Google's Gemini AI chatbot is now available to younger students in Workspace - how it's different by Sabrina Ortiz at ZDNet (June 24, 2024).
See Out of Step: Students, Teachers in Stride with EdTech Threats While Parents Are Left Behind by Elizabeth Laird, Maddy Dwyer and Kristin Woelfel at the Center for Democracy and Technology (January 15 2025). See also their Out of Step slides and report based on their 2024 survey. According to the CDT study, less than half of parents know if their child is using AI (46% of high-school parents; 42% of middle-school parents).
See also these two articles at Common Sense Media (September 18, 2024):New Report Shows Students Are Embracing Artificial Intelligence Despite Lack of Parent Awareness and School Guidance and The Dawn of the AI Era: Teens, Parents, and the Adoption of Generative AI at Home and School. See also Students Are Using AI Already. Here’s What They Think Adults Should Know by Ryan Nagelhout at Usable Knowledge, Harvard Graduate School of Education (September 10, 2024) and Most US Teens Use Generative AI. Most of Their Parents Don’t Know by Kate Knibbs at Wired.com (Sep 18, 2024).
See Students Outrunning Faculty in AI Use by Lauren Coffee, Inside Higher Education (October 31, 2023) and the Time for Class June 2024 Report (June 11, 2024)
Leading Through Disruption: Higher Education Executives Assess AI’s Impacts on Teaching and Learning is a report by C. Edward Watson (AAC&U) and Lee Rainie (Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center) that shares findings from their national survey of 337 college leaders. Interestingly, regarding administrator use of generative AI, 83% of leaders reported their personal use of AI.
2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study: Into the Digital AI Divide by Jenay Robert and Mark McCormack (February 17, 2025). See Introductions and Key Findings. See also Special Focus: The Digital AI Divide between Institutions which reflects the challenges some smaller institutions face around new AI-related costs.
Survey: 86% of Students Already Use AI in Their Studies by Rhea Kelly at Campus Technology (August 28, 2024), cites the Digital Education Council’s Global AI Student Survey 2024.
See the Teaching Newsletter by Beth McMurtrie at the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 10, 2025).
See More than Half of Students Will Use AI Writing Tools Even if Prohibited by Their Institution by Rhea Kelly at Campus Technology (April 26, 2023). See the connected Time for Class 2023 report or the updated Fall GenAI IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Fall 2023 Update which notes that 75% of AI-using students will continue to use AI “even if their professors or institutions ban the technology”