For parents

How kids are using AI for school

In a Pew Research Center survey of 1,458 U.S. teens in fall 2025, 54% said they have used chatbots to get help with schoolwork, and one in ten said they do all or most of their schoolwork with chatbots' help pewresearch.org. 59% said using AI to cheat is a regular occurrence at their school pewresearch.org. That last number is what teens perceive, not a measured cheating rate.

What it does to learning depends on the tool

In a field experiment with nearly a thousand high school math students, those who practiced with a standard ChatGPT-style tool improved their practice grades by 48%, but when the tool was taken away they scored 17% lower on their own exam than students who never had it. A tutor version built with guardrails avoided most of that drop econpapers.repec.org. One subject, one country, measured shortly after.

In a Harvard physics course, students who used a carefully designed AI tutor at home learned more, in less time, than students in a strong in-class lesson pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. The authors state an AI tutor should not replace in-person teaching.

The OECD's 2026 review puts it in one line: finishing a task with AI does not necessarily mean learning, while tools guided by clear teaching principles can help digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu.

AI companions

In a 2025 survey of 1,060 teens ages 13 to 17, 72% had used an AI companion at least once, and 33% used them for social interaction and relationships commonsensemedia.org. Among teens who use them, 33% had discussed serious matters with an AI companion instead of a real person, and 34% had felt uncomfortable with something one said or did commonsensemedia.org. In the Pew survey, 12% of teens said they had used chatbots for emotional support or advice pewresearch.org.

The law is starting to move, and on this both parties are writing the same bills. California's SB 243, signed in October 2025, requires companion chatbot operators to have a protocol for suicidal ideation and self-harm that refers users to crisis services, and to remind minors they are talking to AI sd18.senate.ca.gov. In April 2026 the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 22 to 0 to advance the bipartisan GUARD Act, which would require age verification and ban minors from AI companions; it still needs votes in the full Senate and the House rollcall.com.

Questions to ask your school

• Does the school have an AI policy, and can I read it?
• Which AI tools are students allowed to use, for which assignments, and do they have learning guardrails?
• How do teachers check what a student can do without AI?
• What does the school tell students about AI companions and where to get help?

Sources

1. Pew Research Center, "How Teens Use and View AI," February 24, 2026 (survey of 1,458 U.S. teens, September 25 to October 9, 2025). pewresearch.org
2. Bastani, Bastani, Sungu, Ge, Kabakci and Mariman, "Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics," PNAS 122(26), 2025 (abstract). econpapers.repec.org
3. Kestin, Miller, Klales, Milbourne and Ponti, "AI tutoring outperforms in-class active learning," Scientific Reports 15:17458, June 3, 2025. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
4. OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026, as summarized by the European Commission Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, 2026. digital-skills-jobs.europa.eu
5. Common Sense Media, "Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions," July 16, 2025 (NORC survey of 1,060 teens). commonsensemedia.org
6. Common Sense Media, same report, users of AI companions (n = 758), July 16, 2025. commonsensemedia.org
7. Office of California State Senator Steve Padilla, on SB 243 being signed into law, October 13, 2025. sd18.senate.ca.gov
8. Roll Call, "Ban on kids' companion chatbots advanced by Senate committee," April 30, 2026. rollcall.com

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