AI in Education: The Impact on Student Learning

A global survey by the Digital Education Council found that 86% of students use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their studies, with 54% using it weekly and nearly one in four using it daily. With the increasing prevalence of AI, the way students learn and teachers teach has changed. AI has significant advantages in education, providing students with practice questions and immediate feedback on difficult topics, enhancing the learning experience. However, AI presents with drawbacks which often raise concerns on the impact AI has on long-term student learning. The increasing use of AI in education has the chance to transform education, but also a possibility of diminishing academic skills, impacting student literacy both now and in the future.

One of AI’s major advantages is its ability to provide immediate, adaptive feedback. With AI, many students get instant responses on an assignment, helping them check answers and correct mistakes. This helps reinforce learning skills and provides needed help outside of the classroom. Another major benefit is accessibility. AI is readily available in developed countries, meaning that students can get help whenever they need it, regardless of time. This is helpful to students with busy schedules by providing extra support. The allowance of independent learning using AI lets students learn at their own pace, continuously practice and revise information, and take more control over when they learn. Generative AI can provide a tutor to every single student, and the possibilities of such a world are endless, making it possible to take education past all previous bounds. Benjamin Bloom’s 2 Sigma problem illustrates an interesting phenomenon, where the average student who learns with tutors 1:1 performs 98% better than the average student in a classroom. Generative AI’s implementation would make the difference between passing and failing in a countless number of students. Given such a foundation, it becomes not only possible, but plausible that students excel.

While these advantages are notable, the drawbacks could potentially be detrimental. College Board reported that between January and May 2025, the use of AI by students have increased from 79% to 84%; additionally, around 69% of high school students reported using chatGPT to help with school assignments and homework in 2025. One of the major concerns with AI is its overuse. Many students depend too heavily on AI softwares like Chat GPT and Gauth AI. While helpful for practice and learning, using it for everyday tasks can cause students not to fully develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. 

This is detrimental for all students but especially younger students who still need a backbone of solid education and critical thinking. Academic integrity is another major issue regarding AI use. AI makes searching up answers, writing essays, and complete work without mental engagement. The increasing use of cheating using AI raises many concerns amongst teachers as their work isn't being done by students but rather robots. Many AI softwares have come out that can detect AI usage in students' work. However, as this happens, new AI softwares have learned to “humanize,” or write essays and complete assignments in a way that's undetectable from these other AI softwares. 

The last major issue with AI is risk of misinformation. AI can be helpful with explanation in answers, but must also be fact checked. Students who over-rely and cheat using AI could potentially be learning inaccurate information, most significantly perpetuating bias and disparities. Explained by the Office of Educational Technology, “algorithmic discrimination” can result from the existence of bias in an AI’s code, caused by the datasets used to train it. In practice, it can create systematic unfairness in the learning opportunities or resources recommended to some populations of students. The datasets used to train AI can also cause it to hallucinate, spewing falsified information because of contradictions it may be exposed to. Always collecting data, this possibility is inevitable, and without the ability to accurately reflect nuance, this presents major implications for all forms of generative AI. This shows the importance of balancing the use of AI as a helpful tool and not as a teacher to rely on. 

Overall, the use of AI in education in student learning is both beneficial and helpful. It can enhance learning and diminish it depending on the user and their use of the software. While there isn't a 100% solution to getting rid of the issues brought by AI, as technology is only getting more advanced, reinforcement of proper AI use by teachers, students, and parents can help alleviate many of these issues and properly balance AI and student learning today. 

Textbooks and educational materials can help downplay the growth of AI usage in schools, providing students with access to more reliable tools. Since these materials are often inaccessible, many students resort to basing their learning solely on AI; some cannot even access AI, leaving them without any meaningful academic support at all.  We wish to counteract this shift by ensuring access to books, technology, and schools is not a privilege but a right for all students across the globe. You can help by donating books that are unused so they can be given to individuals who don't have access to the same learning tools that others have, and help close the educational gap to help further learning for students throughout the world.