As AI becomes critical to future workforce success, students share their views on the role universities play in AI integration and education.

Most students are using AI for academics


As AI becomes critical to future workforce success, students share their views on the role universities play in AI integration and education

Key points:

Eighty-six percent of higher-ed students are already using AI in their studies, according to a survey from the Digital Education Council.

Fifty-four percent of students say they use AI at least weekly, with students using 2.1 AI tools on average. Twenty-two percent of students say they use more than three AI tools in their studies.

ChatGPT is the most widely-used tool, with 66 percent of students using it in their studies. Grammarly and Microsoft Copilot each see a 25 percent adoption rate among students. Students also report using other AI applications such as Claude AI, Blackbox, DeepL, and Canva image generator.

Students are using AI to:

  • Search for information (69 percent)
  • Check grammar (42 percent)
  • Summarize documents (33 percent)
  • Paraphrase documents (28 percent)
  • Create a first draft (24 percent)

Fifty-eight percent of students say they do not feel they have sufficient AI knowledge and skills, and 48 percent do not feel adequately prepared for an AI-enabled workforce–concerning statistics, given the importance of AI skills in an economy that is rapidly integrating AI in all sectors.

A whopping 80 percent of students say their university’s efforts to integrate AI tools have not met expectations, underscoring the need for institutions to understand how students prioritize AI tools and to integrate them in ways that align with students’ expectations.

Students also expect their institutions to provide training on effective use of AI tools (41 percent strongly agree), 42 percent strongly agree that faculty should receive training on effective AI tool use, 41 percent strongly agree that they expect their institutions to offer more courses on AI literacy, and 38 percent strongly agree that universities should involve students in decisions surrounding which AI tools are implemented.

Download the report for a full analysis of students’ AI expectations.

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Laura Ascione

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