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Schools are adopting AI, but teacher use is moving faster than teacher preparedness. In OECD TALIS 2024 data, 37% of lower-secondary teachers in participating education systems said they used AI for work, while three in four teachers said they lacked the knowledge or skills to teach using it. That points to real use and a substantial readiness gap—not a global count of schools with AI systems, and not proof that AI improves learning.

How widely are teachers using AI?

The clearest comparable figure is from the OECD’s TALIS 2024 survey, summarized in its 2026 Digital Education Outlook: 37% of lower-secondary teachers in participating education systems reported using AI for their job in 2024. The rate varied considerably across systems: it was much higher in Singapore and the United Arab Emirates, and below one in five in France and Japan.

This is teacher-reported use, not a census of school or district deployments. It does not tell us whether a school has a formal AI policy, whether students have access to approved tools, or whether AI is used consistently across classrooms. The evidence supports a narrower conclusion: AI has entered teachers’ work in many places, but uptake is uneven.

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What are teachers using AI for?

TALIS results suggest that teachers most often use AI for preparation and information work. The figures below refer to lower-secondary teachers in participating education systems; where noted, the denominator is only teachers who said they used AI.

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Use or view Finding Who the figure describes
Used AI for work in 2024 37% Lower-secondary teachers
Used AI to learn about or summarize a topic 68% Teachers who used AI
Used AI to generate lesson plans or activities 64% Teachers who used AI
Used AI to review student participation or performance data 25% Teachers
Used AI to assess or grade student work 26% Teachers
Agreed AI helps write or improve lesson plans 57% Lower-secondary teachers

The pattern is consistent with AI serving as a planning and information assistant more often than as an automated decision-maker. The survey figures describe reported uses and opinions; they do not establish how well a tool performed or whether students learned more as a result.

Are teachers and schools prepared?

Use and readiness are not the same thing. On average, three in four teachers in TALIS 2024 reported that they lacked the knowledge or skills to teach using AI. Among teachers who did not use AI, about one-third said they felt overwhelmed by the shift to new technologies, including AI.

Teachers also raised concerns that matter for classroom practice. Around 72% of lower-secondary teachers believed AI could harm academic integrity by allowing students to pass off work as their own. Other concerns include biased outputs, misconceptions, and privacy or security risks. These are not reasons to treat every AI use as harmful; they are reasons to set expectations and prepare staff before a tool becomes routine.

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Readiness involves more than buying access. A school needs a clear instructional reason for each use, time and training for teachers, understandable rules for students, safeguards for personal data, and a way to check whether students are learning rather than simply producing polished work.

Does AI actually help students learn?

It can support learning when its use is guided by sound teaching, but a better-looking assignment or faster completion is not, by itself, evidence of learning. In its OECD Digital Education Outlook 2026, the OECD distinguishes task performance from learning gains: general-purpose generative AI used without pedagogical guidance can help complete a task without producing real learning gains. Purposeful educational uses may support learning when they are designed around teaching principles.

That distinction changes what schools should evaluate. A tool that supplies a finished answer may improve the immediate output while reducing the student’s opportunity to reason, practice, or explain. A use that prompts a learner to try, receive feedback, revise, and explain their thinking has a clearer instructional purpose—but still needs evaluation in the classroom where it is used.

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UNESCO’s AI competency frameworks for students and teachers emphasize human agency, critical thinking, and ethics. Those principles help keep AI in a supporting role: students should develop the ability to question and use AI outputs, while educators retain responsibility for instruction and relationships with learners.

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What should a school check before expanding AI use?

Schools and districts can use these questions to distinguish access from readiness:

  • Learning design: Does the use prompt student thinking, practice, or useful feedback, or does it mainly produce finished answers?
  • Teacher role: Does it support educators’ judgment and give them useful time or insight, or risk displacing professional decisions and relationships?
  • Evidence: Will the school look for learning, understanding, and transfer—not only speed, completion, or polished output?
  • Safeguards: Are privacy, security, bias, transparency, and age-appropriateness addressed for the specific use?
  • Equity and access: Can students use the approach with available devices and connectivity, and are language and disability inclusion considered? Is there an alternative for students who lack access?
  • Governance: Are teachers, families, and students clear on acceptable use, disclosure, and how AI-related work will be assessed?
  • Professional learning: Do teachers have relevant training and time to adapt lessons and assess the tool’s effects?

These checks reflect OECD and UNESCO guidance; they are not a ranking of particular products. A school can have broad access and still be unprepared if it cannot answer them.

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What does current policy activity show?

Policy development is happening at several levels, but it should not be mistaken for universal implementation. An OECD and Fondazione Agnelli inventory reported AI guidance or policy activity in 26 U.S. states and Puerto Rico as of July 2025. That is evidence of policy work, not evidence that every school in those jurisdictions has adopted a policy or uses AI effectively.

In a July 2025 announcement, the U.S. Department of Education described federal guidance areas including AI-based instructional materials, AI-enhanced tutoring, college and career navigation, privacy, stakeholder engagement, AI literacy, and educator professional development. The announcement also described an additional supplemental priority as proposed at that time; it should not be read as proof of a finalized nationwide school mandate.

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