Stanford's 2026 AI Index reports that four out of five US high school and college students now use generative AI for schoolwork, even though only half of middle and high schools have any AI policy and just 6% of teachers describe those policies as clear four out of five US students use AI for schoolwork
Stanford HAI's 2026 AI Index reports that four out of five US high school and college students use AI for schoolwork, often for research, essay editing and brainstorming. However, only half of middle and high schools have AI policies, and just 6% of teachers say those policies are clear.
Verified 2026-09-22
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Students have adopted AI well ahead of the rules meant to guide them, a gap schools must close.
More on Adoption
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index, citing McKinsey's 2025 survey, breaks down AI-agent deployment by business function. Even in IT, the function with the most agent activity, the share of organisations reporting no AI-agent use at all in 2025 was still 69% of organizations report zero AI-agent use in IT, the business function with the heaviest agent activity
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index reports that organizations' use of generative AI specifically, not just AI overall, grew sharply in 2025: the share of organizations that regularly use generative AI in at least one business function reached 79%, up from 71% in 2024
- Stanford's 2026 AI Index compared generative AI's adoption curve after its mass-market debut to that of earlier transformative technologies, and found generative AI reached 53% population adoption within three years, faster than the PC or the internet
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